Star Wars: White Snow: Recognition
by Vhetin1138
Summary: Book 8: Jay becomes the target of mysterious assassins hell-bent on her murder. While being sheltered from these assassins, she finally reveals the details about her time spent with the Empire. Rated T for violence and mild language. See reviews for full synopsis.
1. Prologue

Prologue: Ambush

**_Oyu'baat _Tapcaf, Keldabe, Mandalore**

The _Oyu'baat _was full of Mandalorians of all shapes, sizes, and colors. It was a busy day by any stretch of the imagination, as it was the first of the twice-weekly Market Days, where virtually all Mando members of Keldabe turned out into the streets to sell essential supplies, weapons, food, and armor. In addition, it was a sunny, warm day and virtually everyone in Keldabe had found an excuse to get out into the first truly warm weather of the season.

Jay sat at the bar_,_ engaged in conversation with a Mandalorian woman named Wad'e Rangir as they shared drinks. Rangir was currently in plainclothes - a nerf-hide jacket with a high collar, black work pants, and tall duraleather boots - and had her short black hair patted down under a duraplast protective skullcap.

Though she was only a few years older than Jay, her face was hard and gaunt, as if she'd seen hard times. As a born Mandalorian and a member of the Mando Protectors mercenary army, Jay was willing to be this woman had been through more firefights and combat situations than she could even count.

"So when are you heading out with the rest?" Jay asked as she sipped at her _tihaar_.

"As soon as the transport is ready to leave," Rangir replied, taking an admirably long swig of _ne'tra gal,_ a much stronger Mandalorian drink. She screwed up her face at the powerful taste before setting her mug down. "The mining post is pretty far up in the mountains, so the rest of the guys thought it would be a good idea to head out early."

"What about you?"

She shrugged. "My husband and I have a stall to run during the Market Days. This mining gig pays well, but it wouldn't replace what we'd lose if we skipped out here."

"Is that where he is?" Jay asked, jerking her head toward the busy streets behind them. "Out running the stall?"

"All the finest melee weapons in Keldabe," Rangir said proudly. "_Ner cyar'ika_ and I are _beskar_smiths."

Now _that_ was an impressive occupation. _Beskar_ was a Mandalorian metal found only on their home planet, and it was extremely difficult to mold into a useable form. Once finished it was nearly indestructible, and the Mandos who worked with the metal were extremely secretive as to their _beskar_-working techniques. Jay had even heard that they were ordered never to reveal the secret, even under the threat of death.

Needless to say, Mandos were very protective of the most expensive of their few exports.

"How long are you guys going to be gone?" Jay asked. "Most of Keldabe has already shipped out for the mining facility, right?"

Ragir nodded, grimacing as she took another long gulp of the bitter _ne'tra gal_. "Almost three-quarters of Keldabe's population are heading out for the week."

"That many?"

"It's a big _beskar_ deposit. That's pretty important business."

Jay shrugged. "I guess I have to agree."

"Don't worry, _aruetii_," the bartender, Aramis, said as he stepped back in front of them. He had two dirty mugs in each hand that he quickly set about to cleaning up. "The _Oyu'baat_ stays open no matter what. One of my many predecessors once kept business open when a huge firestorm swept through Keldabe. The city almost burned to the ground, but several _Mando'ade_ used that soup pot over the fire there to help ferry water and douse the flames closest to the tapcaf. The first round was on the house for the rest of the day."

Jay and Rangir both laughed. The bartender's lips twitched upward in a near-smile, then he moved on to take an order from a silver-blue Mando sitting at a booth near the southern room of the tapcaf.

The entrance door swung open with a slight clatter from a string of rough-hewn bells hung from the top of the door. Jay and Rangir turned to see Brianna step through into the tapcaf and head for them.

"_Su'cuy_, Jay, Rangir," the bounty huntress said as she approached.

"_Su'cuy_, Brianna," Rangir said, nodding to her. "What brings you here?"

"Your husband wanted me to tell you that the transport is loaded up and ready to board. You should head up there now if you want to get a window seat."

Rangir chuckled as she stood and tossed ten credits down on the bartop to pay for her drink. She smoothed out her jacket and picked up her rucksack with her armor in it.

"I'll catch up with you when we all get back, Jay," she said, then headed for the door and disappeared outside.

Brianna slid onto the now-vacant seat. "So," she said, "making some new friends?"

Jay nodded. "I like to walk around the city on the Market Days and see what I find. I meet a lot of new people that way."

"I'll bet. Are you sure that's such a good idea, with you being a wanted Imperial fugitive and all?"

She shrugged and took another sip of her drink. "What's it been, almost eight months now since BlueSend? The Imps haven't caught me yet. I'm pretty sure they never even paid attention to my file."

"Even so, it would do you well to exercise a little caution. All it would take is a single stormtrooper to recognize your face and you're back off to prison."

Jay looked over at Brianna and said, "Is this because Vhetin is going with everyone else up to the mining facility? I can take care of myself without him hovering over my shoulder."

"No, it's because three-quarters of _Keldabe_ is going to be up to the mining facility. Without an entire army of Mandos standing between them and their targets, the Empire might see this as the perfect time to do a little espionage into the capital."

"I'm pretty sure Shysa has taken precautions."

Fenn Shysa, the leader of the Mandalorians may have been overly optimistic as far as diplomacy with the Imperials went, but Jay knew he was no fool. Rumor had it that he was even training some Mandos in specialist anti-Imperial combat techniques in case the Empire ever got too hostile for Mando tastes.

"I'm just saying _you_ should take precautions as well."

Jay laughed as she finished her drink and paid Aramis. The two women stood and headed for the door, emerging into the bright, sunny square outside.

"What kind of precautions?" Jay inquired, squinting against the bright light of Mandalore's sun.

"Mia and I are going to be taking care of the Omotao farm while Rame's away. Why don't you head down there with us for the day? Shake up your schedule a bit."

She shook her head. "I can't. I've got things to do around my apartment. I bought a couch the other day."

"A couch?"

"I'm still not moved in completely," she explained. "I've barely got enough furniture to avoid sleeping on the floor."

Brianna snorted. "Tell me about it. My apartment is barely big enough to even _consider_ sleeping on the floor."

Jay frowned at the other huntress. "What do you mean? I thought you were pretty successful as a bounty hunter."

"Success at the job doesn't mean you get to live in big fancy mansions. A bounty huntress should keep a low profile so as not to attract the attention of any enemies she may have picked up along the way."

Jay suddenly thought of her own apartment: fairly modest, but certainly not to be considered a 'hideout'. It was a moderate-sized living space, with two rooms and a loft area that now served as her bedroom. Now that she thought about it, there wasn't really anything that could serve as cover if she was ever attacked, no places where she could secretly hide weapons-

"Wait a minute," she said, narrowing her eyes and half-smiling at Brianna. "You're just trying to get me paranoid like Vhetin, aren't you?"

"Not like Vhetin," she said. "Trust me; he'd be pretty hard to keep up with."

The two stood and waited as a long line of Mandalorians, both armored and un-armored, filed past them, heading for the transports waiting to take them up into the mountains.

From all Jay had been able to gather, this new mining post was a big deal, and Shysa had put all hands on deck to get it up and running. He'd made an announcement at the beginning of the week; nothing fancy, he had just stood up one night in the _Oyu'baat_ and said that he wanted all the clans he could get helping to excavate a pretty extensive _beskar_ deposit up in the mountains. From that day on the message had traveled from person to person across Keldabe and the rest of Mandalore. Mandos had slowly been streaming up into the mountains ever since, until now the majority of Keldabe was like a shabby-looking ghost town.

Vhetin and Rame, as well as Venku and the rest of the Skiratas, had been among the first to head up. Jay remembered when she, Brianna, and Mia had seen them all off.

"_It shouldn't be too big a deal," Rame had said as he'd spun his helmet between his hands. "A week or so of work, then we'll be back home."_

_Mia had nodded, then kissed her husband. When she pulled away, she said, "We'll hold down the fort until you guys get back. Just don't take too long. And no _ne'tra gal _while you guys are up there. Remember what happened to Katrea and his team a year ago?"_

_Jay had frowned and looked to Venku for explanation. He'd grimaced and said, "They all got drunk and started thinking their companions were Death Watch."_

"_Oh no."_

"_Oh no is right," he'd said. "It took search teams almost four months to find 'em. They may have been drunk, but their combat abilities were top-notch. They had bodies hidden under bushes and strung up from trees like true guerilla fighters."_

"_Don't worry about it, son," Old Kal Skirata had said, putting a lined hand on Venku's shoulder. "All the _gal _is being left behind. We're being forced to remain completely focused on the mining job. _Mand'alor'_s orders."_

_Vhetin, meanwhile, had been saying farewell to Brianna. They hugged each other gently, and Brianna rested her forehead against Vhetin's helmet. It was the closest two could come to a kiss when at least one of them was in armor._

"_You promise you'll comm me?" she said._

_He nodded. "I promise. Who else am I going to talk to when I'm up there? Tobbi Dala? That's always a treat."_

_She'd laughed and said, "Just come home safe, all right? I'm not going stand you getting into trouble while I'm not there to participate."_

_He'd nodded and said, "I swear. _Haat, ijaa, haa'it."

_She nodded. "Good enough for me."_

_Then she'd stepped back and she, Jay, and Mia had waved as the Mandos all loaded onto the transport. A minute later the ship lifted off with a tremendous thundering of its bright red engines and roared off toward the mountains, followed by two other ships of identical make._

"_They'll be fine," Jay had said as they watched the ships disappear. "They're a bunch of heavily-armed Mando men and women, all of whom have military training at the very least."_

"_Yep," Mia said, clapping her shoulder. "And now it's up to us _aruetii _girls to keep things safe for 'em until they get back."_

Now, as Jay walked through the mostly-empty streets of Mandalore's capital city, she felt slightly uncomfortable. As scruffy as it looked, Keldabe had always been full of life in the past. And now with most of the Mando population gone, the city looked empty and dead.

For the next half-hour Jay and Brianna shopped for a bit at what streetside stalls were still open. Jay bought some groceries, some power cells for her datapad, and finally turned her sights on a stall selling clothing. Her armorleather jacket, a garment she'd grown rather fond of since purchasing it, had to be abandoned when she and Vhetin had infiltrated a hidden Sith enclave to rescue a missing Mandalorian huntress several weeks before. She still didn't have much in the way of clothing, so she needed to find a replacement until she could find a similar jacket.

"Help me out here, would you?" she asked Brianna. They inspected the stall, looking for something suitable.

"How about this one?" Brianna eventually said, holding up a dark brown nerf-hide jacket with armored shoulder pads and stiff arms for stability while firing high-caliber weapons.

Jay grimaced. "Eh, not really. That's geared toward a more... dedicated hunter than me."

"What about this?"

"It's armor plated."

"What's wrong with that?" Brianna asked, raising an eyebrow. "I don't know if you've picked up on this, but armor is a kind of a theme around these parts."

"No thanks. What about this?"

She held up a gray coat that fell to her mid-shins. It wasn't armorleather, but it would be good for hiding her DC-17 under her arm on more dangerous missions. It would do well until she was able to find the Mandalorian woman who'd sold the armorleather jackets.

Brianna cocked her head and said, "Hm... I kinda like it. It suits you."

"Good." Jay turned to the Twi'lek Mando running the stand and handed him thirty credits to pay for the jacket. Once done, she slipped it over her shoulders and tested out the pockets. They would definitely be enough to conceal a couple grenades or a virbroblade at the very least. She smoothed out the sleeves and said, "I like it. I could get used to it."

They continued for a bit, buying supplies and groceries on their way. It was another half-hour before they reached the small collection of buildings that housed Jay's apartment.

Brianna looked up at one of the buildings, a large three-story apartment complex, and said, "Which one is yours?"

"Room Twelve, Level Two," Jay replied. She cocked her head toward the building. "Follow me."

The inside of the building was fairly clean compared to most of the other buildings in Keldabe. The floors were scrubbed and even somewhat polished. The stairs leading up to the second floor were smooth and even, even if the railings were splintered and smudged by the fingerprints of thousands of hands.

"This is me, down here" Jay said as they strode down the hall. She pulled her keycard for her door and said, "Would you like a cup of caf?"

"I think that would be great," the huntress said. "I've got to be down at the farm ready for a hard day's work in an hour or so. I need some caf in my system or I'm going to pitch off the back of a repulsor truck."

Jay began to laugh, then paused as she heard a quiet _click_ as she pushed open the door.

A moment later a deafening _blam_ split the air and she felt a shockwave hit her full in the chest. She went flying back, crashing into the door of the apartment across the hall.

Brianna cursed as she was also blasted onto her back. She threw her arms in front of her face to block the spray of burnt wood chips that bounced off her.

When Jay's eyes stopped watering, she shook hair out of her face and looked at the smoking hole that had been her apartment door. The floor was burned away, showing the plastoid supports beneath, and still-burning pieces of wood had been embedded like throwing knives in the wall behind her by the force of the blast.

Then she looked over Brianna, coughed, and said, "What was that you said about taking precautions?"


	2. Chapter 1

_A long time ago,_

_in a galaxy far, far away..._

Star Wars: White Snow

Recognition

_Summer has come to Mandalore, and all across the frontier world Mandalorians are busying themselves with the business of the planet. Businesses must be run, farms built, and most importantly, precious_ beskar _must be mined._

_Cin Vhetin has been called away, along with many other Mandalorians, to help in the building of a new _beskar _mining facility in the mountains. Keldabe has been all but abandoned, as _Mand'alor _Fenn Shysa has decreed that all able-bodied clan members should pitch in to help._

_But while many around Keldabe see this as an opportunity to build upon recent good times, others see the mass exodus from the city as the perfect opportunity..._

Chapter 1: The Kill Cross

**Jay's apartment, Keldabe, Mandalore, 30 minutes after blast**

"And you're sure you had no idea it was there?" asked the gold/gray-armored Mandalorian. He had a silver variation of the Mando mythosaur insignia emblazoned across his chest plates, showing that he was a part of the local Keldabe law enforcement militia. His helmet was clipped to his belt, and he ran a hand through his short brown hair as he consulted a handheld datapad.

The man looked up at her, then gestured to the remains of the door and murmured, "Does the blast look familiar to you?"

"Familiar?" she said, gingerly pressing a coldpack to her forehead. Her head pounded from the knock she'd taken against the wall. "Why would an explosion look familiar?"

He shrugged. "It depends. Do you have any experience with explosives?"

She grimaced as a fresh stab of pain went through her head. "You know, most law enforcement officers would ask me if I had any enemies who might want me dead."

He shrugged again. "Bounty hunters have a lot of enemies. It's kind of a useless question around here."

The enforcement officer looked like he could easily be the posterboy for law enforcement agencies all across the galaxy. He was about Jay's age, handsome, and muscular. He was clean-shaven and his short hair looked like it was cut down short enough to be exactly within military regulations. He looked more like an enforcement officer out of a holodrama than one in real life. But Jay had long since gotten used to the surprises that seemed to permeate every aspect of the Mandalorian presence in Keldabe.

"Then no," Jay sighed. "I have no experience with explosives and the blast doesn't look familiar."

He nodded and began typing into a datapad. After a moment, he said, "So... do you think you have any enemies who might want you dead?"

She stared at him, narrowing her eyes and half-smiling. "You're doing that on purpose, aren't you?"

He chuckled and shut down the 'pad. "I'm just trying to loosen you up. You'll remember more if you're relaxed."

"There honestly isn't much to remember," she admitted. "I was talking to Brianna when I opened my door and _boom_! When we stopped seeing stars, we got up and dialed you guys."

He scratched at his stubbly hair and was about to say something more when another conversation wafted toward them. It was Brianna, who was indignantly fighting off the Mandalorian med-tech who was trying to bandage her bleeding arm.

"Get off me you _shabla di'kut_," she snapped, brushing the white-armored Mando woman away. "I'm fine. I've tripped down a flight of stairs and been hurt worse than this."

She fixed the gold-armored enforcement officer with a cold gaze and said, "What the hell happened? Jay opened the door and the entire kriffing apartment exploded."

"Not quite," the Mando said. He stepped into Jay's apartment, gesturing for them to follow. Brianna stood from a stool that the med-tech had provided, shaking the woman off again, and followed Jay as she stepped into her blasted apartment.

The gold officer gestured to the scorch mark on the floor and said, "The explosive was small, probably only the size of a small grenade. The burn pattern indicates that it was some kind of plasma-based weapon, but it's hard to tell more than that just by looking at it."

He was right; apart from a small section around the door, the rest of Jay's apartment was untouched. He frowned and explained, "It looks like the grenade was anchored to the floor, and the primer button was attached to a kind of trip-wire mechanism that was designed to go off when someone entered the apartment.

Brianna snorted quietly and said, "So it's a good thing you don't have a boyfriend, Jay, or he'd be splattered across the wall."

Jay blushed slightly and motioned for Brianna to shut up. The enforcement officer glanced between the two of them before continuing, "Whoever did it was sloppy, though; the mechanism went off early, so most of the explosion was absorbed by the door."

"Yeah," Jay said, frowning and looking around, "where is the door, anyway? I thought it would have fallen on me or something."

"You're standing in it."

"What?" She looked down and saw that she was standing in a fine layer of flash-burned black ash. Her eyebrows shot up and she let out a low whistle. "So... that could have been me if the trap was set right?"

He nodded. "I've seen it before."

"Do you have any idea who would do something like this?" Brianna asked, folding her arms.

He shrugged. "It's hard to tell, especially in a wild town like Keldabe. It could be anything from crazy warmongering mercenaries to... I don't know, Imperial assassins."

Jay and Brianna glanced worriedly at each other, but the enforcement officer didn't notice. He just studied the blast mark on the ground and murmured, "Wait a second..."

Another person stepped through the door, her face flushed and worried. Jay glanced up and said, "Mia? What are you doing here?"

"I came as soon as I heard," Rame's wife said, her shoulders slumping in relief as he saw the two. "Are you two okay?"

"We're fine," Jay said. "A little banged up, but nothing bad."

"What happened?" Mia demanded of the gold-armored officer, taking a step into the apartment.

"A grenade trap," he explained. "Meant to kill anyone who walked through the door."

She spun to Jay. "Just who have you and Vhetin run afoul of now?"

"No one!" Jay protested. "Honestly, I have no idea who it could be."

"Judging from the fairly intimate way this trap was set," the officer said to Jay, "it's a good bet that whoever is trying to kill you takes this very personally."

"Great," Jay said. "So I have a stalker?"

"Maybe. Maybe just another bounty hunter you inadvertently stole a contract from."

"That'll really narrow down the list," Brianna said, rolling her eyes.

"We're searching the area for possible suspects," he continued. "It's more than possible whoever set the trap wanted to stick around to gloat over their kill, so if they're here we'll find 'em."

Mia nodded, relaxing slightly. "Okay. Well, as long as you two are safe."

"Come on," Brianna said, putting a hand on Jay's shoulder. "This place isn't safe for you right now. Until we find out who's trying to kill you, you can stay at my place."

"Is that okay?" Jay asked, looking to the gold-armored officer. "Do you need me to answer any more questions?"

He shook his helmeted head. "I'll call you if I need anything more."

"Okay. Thanks, Brianna," Jay sighed. She looked around at her apartment one last time, then followed the other huntress out the door.

The gold enforcement officer followed them, saying, "That's probably a good idea. But if you can think of anything else, you can contact me on this."

He handed Jay a comlink and explained, "It's programmed with my personal comm number. I'm the officer on call for this case so if there's anything you need — anything at all — contact me and I'll be there as quickly as possible."

"Thank you, um..." Jay hesitated. "I'm sorry, I don't think I ever got your name."

"Denton," he said, holding out a hand and smiling at her. "Denton Dral."

"Jay," she replied, shaking his hand. "Jay Moqena."

He nodded. "I know. I read your Imperial file, Miss Moqena."

He followed them to the top of the stairs and called after them, "Remember, anything at all happens and you call me."

"I won't forget," she called back to him.

As they headed down the stairs, Mia put a hand on Jay's shoulder and asked, "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," she said. "A little shaken up, but apart from that I'm fine. Mostly I'm just confused. Who would be trying to kill me?"

Brianna shook her head. "Trying to find a would-be assassin is difficult enough. To find one out of the multitude of enemies a bounty hunter makes every day is downright ludicrous."

"Yeah..." Mia nodded, frowning thoughtfully. She suddenly clapped her hands and said, "Tell you what. I'm going to stay here and see what I can dig up. With any luck, I'll be able to track down this assassin in no time flat."

Jay frowned at her. "You? I thought-"

"What?" Mia said, her beautiful face breaking into a wide grin. "You thought I was just a simple farmer's wife? Jay, you should know better than to make assumptions like that."

Then she turned and headed back up the stairs, heading back towards the gold-armored enforcement officer.

"What was that about?" Jay asked Brianna.

The other huntress grinned, half to herself. "I'm not going to say. Mia will tell you later."

Jay sighed explosively. "What is _with_ you Mandos and your secrets?"

"I'm not Mandalorian and neither is Mia. We're all just appreciative of each other's privacy."

"I've noticed," Jay sighed as they stepped through the doors and into the deserted street outside. She ran a hand through her messy, ashy hair and said, "In any case, thanks for letting me stay at your place until we sort all this out."

Brianna snorted. "Don't thank me yet. You haven't seen the state of my apartment."

"Thanks either way," Jay continued. "This is all just... so damn _confusing_, and it's good to have a friend to be able to turn to."

They walked in silence for a time, heading out toward the plaza outside the _Oyu'baat_. Around them, the Market Day was slowly grinding to a close. As the sun set behind MandalMotors Tower, Mandos were packing up their stalls, sweeping the streets where they had set up, or offering last-minute deals on their merchandise.

The two huntresses leaned up against the railing that overlooked the roaring Kelita River Waterfall. The cool misty spray of the water eased Jay's pounding head, and she gratefully closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"It's strange," she murmured. When Brianna looked to her to elaborate, she sighed and continued, "Keldabe's always seemed like the safest place in the galaxy to me. Now... I don't know, it seems wild and unfamiliar. I see all these windows and all I see are good vantage points for snipers. I see all these buildings and I'm thinking about who might be lurking around the doorway."

"You're just paranoid," Brianna reassured her. "Keldabe's still the same old cesspit. It's just up one more psycho now."

"Yeah. Just one more psycho who wants to kill me."

"That's just a part of the job," Brianna said, shrugging. "You'll get used to it. Most of the enemies we come across don't have the resources or the resolve to go this far. You're just lucky enough to get a bad one."

"Or unlucky enough."

She shrugged. "Whatever you want to think."

"Right... so where do you live?" Jay asked, trying to get her mind away from her mysterious stalker. The thought was sending shivers through her body, and she needed to keep her head if she had any hope of surviving all of this. It was one of the most important things Vhetin had taught her: she needed to keep focused in times of stress. Lesser beings that broke down and panicked were the first to die.

Brianna turned and pointed to the southeast. "That way, in an apartment complex just outside the second barrier wall. It's kind of a dump, but it works for me."

She stepped away from the railing. "Come on. It's getting dark, and we need to get you indoors before the real freaks of Keldabe come out to play."

* * *

It was twenty minutes of walking before they reached the second barrier wall and the stormtrooper guard that was posted there.

"Halt!" one of the troopers barked, raising a hand. "Let me see your identification."

Brianna fished in a pocket of her high-collared jacket and produced her pilot's license. Jay quickly pulled out her own license and showed it to the trooper as well.

"Bounty hunters Bellan and Moqena," Brianna said. "You white jobs gonna let us through or make us stand here all night or can we head through?"

The stormtrooper took their licenses and studied them closely before nodding to himself. "All right. You can head through. Move along."

Brianna shook her head and muttered a particularly fluent curse in Mando'a directed toward the checkpoint troopers there. If the troopers heard or understood the insult, they didn't show it. They just stood resolutely at their post, waiting for the next passerby.

In a motion that had quickly become a habit of hers, Jay was compelled to look up and marvel at the sheer size of the barrier wall as she passed through it. The city of Keldabe was built on top of a large hill and organized into five sections, each of them divided by a huge barrier wall intended to protect the city in times of siege; if enemies somehow made it into the city, the defending Mandos could fall back behind each wall. The entire city was built like a gigantic fortress, with the central circle containing MandalMotors tower, Mandalore's single largest hypernautics company and the site of many of the planet's renowned _beskar_ workshops. The protection of these businesses was paramount, as a loss of one of them would cause a complete breakdown of Mandalore's already shaky economy.

The wall itself was at least sixty feet high, made of over three meters of simple stone blocks that were twice as big as Jay was. Time, the elements, and graffiti from local hoodlums had worn some of the ancient magnificence of the walls away but they still stood tall, stretching into the dark sky to where they blotted out the last remnants of sunset.

"Keep up, _Ja'ika_," Brianna called. "I'm not waiting for you."

Jay started and broke into a jog in order to keep up with the other huntress. "Are we close?"

"Not quite," Brianna explained. "There are only four access points through the walls; one to the north, south, east, and west. My apartment is a half-mile from the southern access point we just went through."

"And… are we safe in this part of the city?" Jay asked, eyeing a group of young Mandalorian men clustered around a burning trash container. They were tossing what looked like Imperial propaganda pamphlets into the flames, muttering angrily and staring at the two huntresses.

"Goodnight guys," Brianna said, nodding politely to them. She glanced at Jay and murmured, "It's not the best place for _aruetii_ women to be at night, so we should start walking a little faster."

Jay nodded and picked up the pace, keeping her gaze away from the Mandalorians. Nevertheless, as they stepped past the young men, she heard one of them shout, "Hey! You there! _Aruetiise_!"

Brianna's shoulder slumped and she sighed, "Ah, _shab_."

Then she took a deep breath and turned around to face them. "Can we help you fellas?"

The four Mandos, all wearing silver armor decked out in greens, yellows, and reds, stepped away from their fire. A silver-green man gestured toward the two. He had short black hair and a flattened nose that looked as if it had been broken several times before.

"Is there something we can help you with?" Brianna asked, folding her arms.

"Are you armed?"

"Are you looking for a fight?"

The small group laughed and the silver-green Mando, who was obviously their leader, shook his head. "Not looking for a fight. But with Keldabe empty like this, it 'aint smart for two pretty young _aruetiise_ like yerselves to be wanderin' off on your own. You need someone to help ya to where yer headed?"

Brianna glanced at Jay, then turned back to the group and nodded. "That would be nice. Thanks _vode_."

The silver-green man bowed his helmeted head and said, "Always happy to help out fellow bounty hunters."

Brianna turned to Jay and grinned. "See? Like I said, we'll be fine."

"You in some kind of trouble?" the silver-yellow Mandalorian asked. He had his helmet clipped to his belt, and his wide face was heavily tattooed.

"We're fine," Jay said as they set off again. "Just a little trouble with-"

Suddenly a sharp _crack_ split the night air and a bright green blaster bolt flashed in front of her face. It hit the duracrete, vaporizing the rock in a blast of smoke and sending Jay staggering away.

"Sniper!" one of the Mandos shouted, drawing a pistol from his belt. All six of them scrambled into action, splitting up and diving for cover. Jay scrambled as fast as she could into what looked like an empty supply shop, blaster bolts stitching the street right on her heels. Two of the Mandalorians sprinted after her, jumping away from the bright green laser bolts.

"What the hell is that?" Jay shouted.

"No idea!" Brianna cried, covering her head as she ran for a dumpster outside the shattered main window of the old shop. A sniper round ricocheted off the durasteel, flying off into the night with a hiss. She dove behind it and quickly sat up, her back slamming against the durasteel with a hollow _thud_.

She shook hair out of her eyes and grinned breathlessly at Jay. "Looks like someone noticed that their bomb didn't quite do the trick."

"Can't rely on booby traps for assassinations these days," the silver-red Mandalorian said, shaking his head. "If you want to kill someone, you gotta do it yourself."

"Right. In the meantime, do you have any weapons?" Jay asked them as the two Mandos pressed their armored backs to the walls. The staccato _crack, crack_ of the attacker's sniper rifle echoed down the street outside and they flinched away from the bright laser bolts as they screamed through the shattered window.

"What, you don't?" the silver-orange Mando shouted over the rifle fire. "What kind of bounty hunter are you?"

"Just give me a gun!" Jay shouted. The man tossed her a field pistol before pulling his helmet over his head. The helmet's flag-like targeting rangefinder flipped down over his visor and he flexed his grip on his own pistol.

Jay quickly checked the tibanna charge and condition of her weapon before reaching up and bashing the window out to clear her firing area.

"Brianna!" she called. The huntress was pinned down with two other Mandos behind the dumpster. She had also borrowed a weapon from one of her companions, and was frantically snapping off shots from around the edge of the dumpster.

At the sound of Jay's voice, she turned and shouted back, "What? What do you want?"

"Can you see him?"

Brianna risked a glance around the corner of the dumpster, but quickly pulled back when a flurry of sniper rounds ricocheted off the dumpster. She cursed and shouted back, "_No_!"

"Damn it." Jay tensed, preparing to straighten and fire at the hidden sniper.

Before she could move, however, Brianna shouted, "Don't move! He's after you!"

"I'm not going to sit around and let us get picked off one by one!"

"Stay put," one of the Mandos growled, grabbing her forearm and pulling her down. He straightened and fired twice into empty space before a green bolt hit him in the throat. He was blasted onto his back, writhing and screaming. Blood bubbled out of his torn flightsuit.

"Damn it! _Vod'daab!_" the silver-orange Mando called, scrambling toward his fallen comrade and pressing his hand to the wound in the man's neck to staunch the bloodflow. "Mando down! _Vod'daab_!"

"We'd better get some help down here," Brianna called, gritting her teeth, "or we won't make it another five minutes!"

An idea suddenly came to Jay and she almost slapped herself. "Denton!" she cried.

"What?"

"Denton! The enforcement officer! He'll be able to help us out!"

She fumbled at her belt before pulling the small comlink the gold-armored Mandalorian had given to her. She keyed the transmission button and shouted, "Denton? Denton please come in!"

All she got was static and she cursed loudly.

"Let me guess," this silver-orange Mando called, "no backup?"

"Whoever is taking potshots at us is jamming the transmission," Jay snapped. "He's more smarter than we thought. How's your buddy?"

The Mando had just finished putting a field bandage over his wounded friend's neck. "He'll live if we can get him to a medcenter. If we're stuck here for much longer..."

He let the rest of the sentence trail off, then simply shook his head.

"If he's jamming our transmission," Brianna muttered, reloading her pistol, "he can't be too far away."

"He's shooting at us," one of the Mandos growled. "Of _course _he's not far away."

"What's going on here?" came a new voice from further down the street. "You there! What're you doing?"

Jay's head snapped toward the new voice. She saw two black-clothed Imperial pilots walking down the street toward them, a tall silver-armored Mandalorian walking behind them. At the sound of blasterfire the pilots drew their Imperial-issue blasters and sprinted toward the firefight, obviously thinking they were coming to the rescue.

"No!" Jay shouted at them. "Stay back! We're under-"

It was too late; bright green blaster bolts slashed through the darkness, flashing from a rooftop across the street. The bolts hit the two pilots with deadly accuracy, blasting them off their feet. They crumpled to the ground a meter or so from where they first stood, smoke slowly rising from their burned bodies.

Something in Jay snapped; she let out a shout of rage and stood, sprinting for the door. Sniper rounds immediately lit up the darkness around her, but she fired blindly in the vague direction of their origin, making her way toward the door.

"What the hell are you _doing_?" the silver-orange Mando snapped at her.

"Hang on!" Jay shouted to the fallen pilots, ignoring the Mandalorian as she ran into the street. She picked up the pace as she heard sniper bolts hitting the street behind her. She skidded to a halt next to the downed pilots, desperately trying to remember the field medicine classes she'd taken while serving in the Navy.

One of the pilots was already dead, most of his chest blown away by the sniper round. The other one, however, was bleeding heavily from a wound to the ribs. The bolt had just grazed his side, but it had still done extensive damage.

Blood pooled on the cement street around the man, staining Jay's pants as she knelt next to him. She pressed two fingers to his neck but couldn't find a pulse. Her blood ran cold.

"Don't worry," she said breathlessly, knitting her fingers together and pushing against his chest. Her CPR didn't work at first, but she kept pushing against his bloody chest She couldn't think about anything but the dying man in front of her, the rest of her mind was blank. She pushed against his chest harder, trying to beat his heart back into its proper function again.

"You're going to be fine," she muttered, brushing hair out of her face with a bloody hand. She resumed her work, shoving her clenched fist against his chest in a steady _one-two-three_ beat. "Just stay with me, damn it!"

The man didn't move, and Jay suddenly felt a fiery rage fill her heart. She couldn't explain it, but she _needed_ this man to survive.

"Stay with me!" she shouted at him, pushing against his chest harder and harder. A note of desperation had entered her voice as she cried, "Don't leave me!"

"Jay!" Brianna's voice suddenly snapped.

Jay suddenly came back to reality, looking around and blinking quickly. She looked down and saw a wavering laser sight dancing over her chest.

"Uh-oh," she muttered. Her training suddenly kicked in and she threw herself back, flattening herself against the street. There was a deafening _crack_ and another green sniper bolt flashed over her, only centimeters from her head.

It was only then that the silver-armored Mando jumped into action from where he'd stood impassively in the street several meters away. He sprinted forward, scooping up one of the fallen Imperial rifles and opening up in the direction the sniper bolt had come from; he had been waiting for another shot, watching for its origin. The bright red laser bolts of the Imperial rifle lit up the darkness around him and permacrete exploded onto the street below as the rifle's own laser bolts impacted against the edge of the rooftop.

The new Mandalorian somersaulted as two more sniper rounds hit the ground at his feet. He rolled back up and braced his feet before firing a jetpack-mounted rocket at the building. With a bright flare of exhaust, the rocket screamed toward the roof. Moments later, the entire rooftop erupted in a wash of fire and shrapnel and a concussive shockewave sent bits of the roof flying several meters into the dark air.

As the explosion slowly faded, the pilot in front of Jay suddenly gasped and began breathing. She straightened and looked down at him, feeling some of the tension in her body slowly ease.

"Somebody!" she called, "call a medical speeder now!"

"On it," the silver-yellow Mando said. He raised his gauntlet and began speaking into the comlink mounted there. He quickly called for a speeder ambulance, pulling off his helmet in order to be heard clearer.

Brianna peeked out from her cover behind the dumpster, checking to see if the coast was clear, then made instantly for Jay. Before she reached her, however, the tall silver-armored Mando knelt next to her and muttered, "Are you all right?"

She nodded, brushing her hair out of her eyes with a hand that was stained with blood. She barely cared about the dark scarlet streaks the motion left on her skin. Her heart was pounding in her ears, adrenaline making her hands shake.

"I'm fine," she sighed, keeping pressure on the pilot's wound to stem the flow of blood. "I... don't know what got into me."

"Your instinct for self-preservation seems to have a definite flaw," the Mando said. His voice was dark and gravelly, reminding her disturbingly of Boba Fett's gravelly monotone. She didn't get the impression he was unfriendly, though. In fact, his quiet, curt tone reminded her of Vhetin; trustworthy, if not quite openly friendly.

"I don't know why you bothered to run out there," the silver-orange Mando suddenly said. He limped out from the ruined shop, supporting his wounded buddy with an arm around his shoulder. A bandage was wrapped around the man's throat, already stained red with blood.

The man moaned and muttered something. The silver-orange man listened intently, then nodded and said, "I agree."

He turned his gaze to Jay and said, "He said you're wasting your time. Why save an Imperial? What've they ever done for you?"

For some inexplicable reason, Jay's first thought was, _More than you'll ever know_.

She shook her head slightly, frowning. What was wrong with her? First she ran out, risking her life to save an Imperial, then she tried to justify her actions? They had branded her a traitor, taken away everything she'd ever loved... why the sudden change of heart?

The Mandalorian was right; she had wasted her time trying to save him. But...

_Did I_? she thought. _I don't feel like I did._

She shook her head and wracked her mind for an excuse. "Maybe I did waste my time," she eventually said. "But this guy wasn't trying to hurt us. He was just an innocent bystander."

"Hm," the silver-armored Mando said, tipping his head slightly. Then he turned to Brianna and murmured, "So I see you're still getting into more trouble than you can handle."

She laughed, brushing dirt from her jacket. "And you're still causing more collateral damage than you can stand to pay for, Mack."

The Mando craned his neck to look at the building. The roof was little more than a sheet of flames. Smoke wafted up into the night sky, and Jay could hear the distant wailing of fire-control team sirens.

"I think you're right," the silver Mando, Mack, said eventually. Then he turned back to the huntress and said, "It's good to see you're still alive. I was sure your ego was going to get you killed before long."

She grinned. "It's good to see you too, _vod_."

"Wait, wait," Jay said, looking between the two. "You two know each other?"

"Old friends, yeah," Brianna said, nodding. "We used to work together, but we cut off the partnership when he got me shot."

"You ran head-first into a firefight," Mack said. "Of course you got shot. That doesn't make it my fault."

"Sure. Whatever you say," Brianna shrugged and turned her gaze back to Jay. "Anyway, I was shot when he was supposed to be watching my back, so we went our separate ways. And now, I work alone."

"As much as I hate to interrupt this interestin' conversation," said the silver-orange Mando, still carrying his wounded friend, "When are the medics gonna get here?"

Jay looked down at the street, seeing the approaching flashing blue-white lights of the speeder ambulances racing toward them. She sighed and looked down at the pilot, whose pulse was beginning to beat more steadily.

"Don't worry, flyboy," she whispered. "You're going to be okay."

* * *

**Jay's apartment, Keldabe, Mandalore, 1 hour, 30 minutes after the blast**

Mia frowned as she knelt in the blast zone for what felt like the hundredth time, tracing her fingers along burnt wood and plastoid. She looked at the ashy residue the motion left all over her fingers and sighed.

She was glad Jay was safe, but she got the feeling that the young woman wasn't out of danger just yet. Something about this scene screamed at her that this was a planned, organized strike, not just a random thug trying to get back for some grievance Jay had caused him. This had been thought out, and thought out well; who else but a serious attacker would rig an explosive so it would detonate as soon as someone opened the door? An attack like that was _planned_, not miraculously thought up on the spot.

The rest of the apartment was very humble. Past the front door was what apparently was going to become a living room, as there was a medium-sized holomonitor set up on the floor and a ratty-looking chair about a meter away. Mia vaguely remembered Jay mentioning something about buying a couch, and she assumed it would have gone somewhere in this area.

Past the living room was the kitchen, also fairly frugal. Jay had set up several of the utensils that Mia and Rame had given her for her surprise apartment-warming party about a month before. Mia could see a caf maker, a water condenser, and a handheld flash-heater for cooking. There was really nothing that gave her a hint as to who would want to hurt Jay.

The small fresher was just as simple; a tiny adjoining room with an equally tiny sanisteamer and a mirror over the washbasin. There was little in the room besides necessary toiletries. Mia shook her head as she walked back into the main room.

Jay's would-be assassins had somehow managed to get into the room, set the explosive, and get back out without being seen. No one could be that careful and not make some kind of mistake or leave something behind. No one was that meticulous.

There was something here, she knew it. She was _missing_ something, and she just needed to concentrate in order to find it. Whatever it was might lead to Jay's attacker and end this whole mess before it barely began.

The gold-armored enforcement officer, Denton, appeared in the doorway, helmet still clipped to his belt.

"The rest of the officers are heading home for the night," he said. "There's really no reason for you to stay."

She shook her head and sighed again. "There's something _here_. I can feel it."

He chuckled and stepped into the room, folding his gauntleted arms across his chest. "So you're a _jetii _now suddenly?"

She shook her head. "Former Imperial Intelligence."

His eyebrows shot up and all trace of humor vanished from his voice. "Oh. A spook?"

"Yeah. I caught over thirty names on the _Empire's Most Wanted_ list. Alone."

He let out a low whistle, looking at her with newfound respect. "So... you think there's something still here? We've been over the area time and again. It looks like random attack."

She shook her head and stood up. "No... see the burn mark here? It almost looks like a _shape_. And if it was a shaped charge, the explosion would have been only to send a message. That's why Jay wasn't killed."

He stared at the burn mark, then fixed her with a skeptical look. "Um... right. Look, you've been working on this for a while now, and-"

"You'd spend more time if Jay was dead," Mia snapped. "If her body was lying in the middle of the floor you'd sure as hell spend more than an hour and a half looking through this _osik_."

"But there _isn't_," he said, his voice quiet but firm. "There _is_ no body, there's no murder, and there's _nothing here_. Just a burn mark in the ground from the explosive. These guys didn't leave anything behind."

"No. I know there's something we're missing."

He sighed and said, "You know, you're remarkably persistent for a spook. I thought everything had to fit into your little timetables and there was no time for anything else to fit into your investigation."

She ignored the half-hearted insult and turned back to the interior of the apartment. There wasn't really anything else in the place except for the small loft that served as Jay's 'bedroom'. She frowned and stepped toward it, her boots thudding on the metal-grate stairs.

There wasn't much in the loft; the only furniture was a modest cot, the covers tucked flat with military tidiness, and a small bedside table featuring a framed holopic of Jay's little sister, Arian.

As she looked closer, however, Mia noticed that there were slight scuffmarks on the surface of the bedside table. She frowned and looked closer, seeing that they were caused by the holoplic being shifted often; the stands that kept the pic upright dragged on the table, scuffing the wood slightly.

The picture had obviously been moved around a lot. But it was just a still image of a young woman, bearing a close resemblance to Jay, smiling at the cam. What was so special about the picture? Jay obviously missed her sister and had said so on several occasions.

But Mia's gut told her that there was something else about the picture, and she had always trusted her instincts in the past. She picked it up, turning it over in her hands.

Sure enough, there was a button on the back. She frowned and pressed it, then jumped slightly as the holopic began to speak.

More accurately, the picture had simply switched from a still image to a full-blown hologram complete with audio. Mia flipped it over, seeing a sputtering, shaking image that was little more than a blur of motion.

"What're you doing up there?" Denton called, but she ignored him, listening intently to the sound coming from the video.

"_What... where's the button_?" came a recorded voice. It was a man's voice, and not one Mia recognized. Maybe one of the beings who'd tried to kill Jay?

"_It's right- okay, stop moving and I'll show you_," came Jay's voice, amusement evident in her tone. "_Will you stop messing around?_"

"_You should have more respect for your superiors_."

"_Superior my ass_," Jay laughed. "_You can't even work a simple holocam_."

"_Okay, okay_," the male voice said. "_I think I got it_."

The picture righted itself, showing a handsome young man with long hair that fell almost to his shoulders, the color of which was impossible to tell from the blue-tinged hologram. He was obviously the one holding the cam, as his arm stretched off to the left and disappeared out of view. He was wearing dark pants and a sleeveless undershirt that showed black tattoos stretching up his arms.

"_Do I look all right?_" came Jay's voice from somewhere off screen.

The view tilted wildly to show Jay, her hair tied back in a tight braid, dressed in a neatly-pressed uniform in dark colors. Mia saw a white Imperial Wheel emblazoned onto the chest of Jay's uniform, just above a tag that read, _Kolta, Captain J. Phantom Squadron 2._

The image shook a bit, then the man's voice said, "_You look beautiful_."

She glared at the cam and said, "_I'm serious. If this is ever discovered and we get court-martialed, I at least want to look professional in the evidence that's going to send us to the stockade_."

"_Come on. We're just doing this for a gag."_

_"It doesn't matter."_

The man laughed from off-camera. "_You look very professional. Like you're dressed to greet Lord Vader himself._"

Mia frowned. What was this? Some memento from Jay's past? She'd never spoken of her time with the Empire before, and Mia had never thought to ask. After all, the Imperials had betrayed the young bounty huntress, and she'd shown nothing but contempt for their minions now.

So what was she doing with a vid recording from her Navy days?

"_Okay_," Jay said, smoothing out her uniform and letting out a long breath. "_I'm ready_."

"_You sure?_"

"_As sure as I'll ever be._"

"_Okay_," the man said. The cam view tilted to face him again. He grinned as Jay sat down next to him on what looked like a military-regulation cot. Mia could see a dark starscape outside a viewport behind them. That meant they were onboard a capital ship or space station.

The man looked into the cam with dark eyes and suddenly adopted a curt, military tone. "_Here follows the official transcript of Nesson, Sade," _he said, "_Captain First Class, serial number TA-2334A and Kolta, Jayshiea, Captain Third Class, serial number OC-9871Q._"

He looked over at Jay and said, "_You want to start?_"

"_With pleasure_," she said with a nervous grin. She looked into the camera and said, "_As per Imperial regulation TT-38, no military personnel may have personal relationships for as long as their tour of duty lasts. But I am officially stating that I have broken that rule._"

She looked over at the young man and took his hand. "_For whoever may discover this message, I am officially stating that I love Captain Sade Nesson._"

"_And I am officially stating that I love Captain Jay Kolta_," he said, grinning widely. "_And that no matter how many court-martials someone threatens to slap on my sorry hide, I'll still love her._"

He looked at the cam and suddenly said, "_So take _that _and choke on it you bureaucratic Imperial kriffers! How 'bout that?_"

Jay laughed, her face lighting up with a joy that Mia had never seen in all the young woman's time on Mandalore.

"_And just to speed along our trial should we be court-martialed_," Jay said, "_I give you Exhibit A_."

Then she reached over, grabbed the young man's face, and kissed him deeply. He murmured his approval, then pulled back after a moment. The two broke into laughter again, and the vid stopped there. The image froze, showing the two's faces lit up with loving smiles.

Mia slowly hit the stud on the back of the pic again, switching it back to the picture of Jay's little sister. She frowned as turned the framed picture over in her hands again, more confused than enlightened.

Who was that young man? Some ex-boyfriend that Jay had long ago left behind? If so, could he be angry enough about her leaving to try to kill her? It wasn't impossible. Most murders were committed by someone the victim knew, even if it was someone they'd known intimately for decades.

She shook her head and called, "Denton, I've got a holopic I want you to run through facial recognition. There's a man in a vid recording here, and I want to know if he's a possible suspect."

"Is that all?" Denton asked, resting his hands on his hips.

Mia looked around one last time, then leaned over the railing and looked down at the apartment below her. As soon as she did, she clapped her hands and cried, "Ha! Told you so!"

"What?"

"Get up here and see for yourself."

Denton was immediately sprinting up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He stopped at her shoulder and looked down. Once again, his eyebrows shot up as he leaned against the railing.

"Okay," he eventually said. "I can admit when I'm wrong. It was a message after all."

Burned into the floor by the heat of the explosion was the scorched shape of a cross.

* * *

**Downtown Keldabe, half a mile from Brianna's apartment**

It had taken a surprisingly short time for the medics to treat the wounded Imperial pilot and the Mando who'd been shot in the throat. They had applied field dressings to their wounds, quickly loaded them onto the ambulances, and sped off toward the nearest medcenter. After some worried pacing and waiting, the three remaining young Mandos had received a confirmation call from the medcenter that both the pilot and their friend were in stable condition.

After some relieved conversation, Jay, Brianna, and the Mandos parted ways. Strangely, though, Mack decided to accompany the two women to Brianna's apartment. When Brianna asked him why he was following them, he replied with a cryptic answer of, "You're going to need my help."

After walking in silence for an uncomfortably long period of time, Jay leaned over to Brianna and cast a nervous glance at the tall, silver-armored Mando. He was walking in silence, his gaze kept unwaveringly on the road ahead of him. His silver armor was painted with bright highlights as they passed underneath glowing halolamps mounted over the street.

"Hey... what's his deal?" she whispered. "He talks even less than Vhetin does."

"If you're worried about him being trustworthy, don't," Brianna whispered back. "He's a _Mando'ad_ through and through. He'll probably actually be helpful before this is done."

"Yeah, but why is he even coming with us? This is my problem, not his."

Brianna shrugged. "Mack likes a challenge. He lives to test himself in combat, and I guess he thinks mysterious assassins and a damsel in distress all but screams his name."

"He's not going to... you know, try and mug us, right?" Jay asked, casting another nervous glance at the Mando. "He seemed pretty violent during that firefight."

"That may be the case," Mack suddenly said. Like Vhetin, he had the strangest habit of speaking up when one had no idea he was even listening to the conversation. "But at least I'm not the one smeared with blood."

Jay rubbed at the crusty smear of dried blood on her forehead. "It's not _my_ blood."

"That's my point."

"At least I was trying to save a guy instead of blowing him up."

He shrugged, not looking at her. "I may have saved your life. You should be more thankful."

"It was your damn fault that pilot was shot in the first place!" Jay cried indignantly. "He could have died because of you! One of them _did_ die because of you!"

"If he wasn't such a _di'kut, _he would have gone home to his wife and children," the Mando replied calmly. "I can't be held responsible for the choices of the moronic."

"Look you stuck-up son of a bitch," Jay snapped, clenching a fist. "You may not give a _shab_ about the Empire, but there are _people_ behind those flight suits. Normal people who laugh and cry and love and-"

She suddenly fell silent, frowning at the ground.

That was the _second _time she'd found herself defending the Imperials. What the hell was wrong with her?

_I'm just tired_, she thought to herself, letting out a deep breath she didn't know she'd been holding. _Once we get to Brianna's apartment, I can get some sleep and see everything with a calmer attitude in the morning._

_If I survive that long._

"I..." she bit her lip and said, "I'm sorry. I don't know what got into me."

"Shock, most likely," he replied in that same, even tone. "You've been through quite an ordeal."

She shook her head, too confused and tired to even question his sudden shift from self-centered excuses to strangely concerned sympathy. She just sighed again and whispered, "I just hope this is all over soon."

Brianna put a comforting hand on her shoulder and said, "It will, _vod'ika_. Mia's on the case and she's not one to give up easily."

She glanced up and said, "Oh, and look at that: we're here."

Jay looked up to see a small permacrete building with several shattered windows on the upper floors and graffiti on the walls. The halolamps that should have illuminated the area sputtered and occasionally threw showers of sparks onto the ground.

"Yeah," Brianna said, noticing Jay's hesitation, "it's not the prettiest of places, but it serves my purposes. Come on up and we'll get you situated."

The inside of the apartment building was just as shabby as the outside. The carpet underfoot was dirty and stained, the stairs were crooked, and the few lights that worked threw dirty-looking bluish light down onto them as they ascended to the second floor.

"This is me," Brianna said, gesturing to the third room down the second floor hall. She pulled a key card from her jacket pocket and ran it over the scanner. The door's lock opened with a click, and she stepped inside.

Jay followed her, casting a nervous glance up and down the hall. Mack brought up the rear, his heavy bootsteps oddly reassuring. It reminded Jay slightly of Vhetin, who was always so calm and level-headed in situations like this.

_That's the ticket_, she thought. _Vhetin wouldn't stand you breaking down like this, would he? I've got to toughen up and think of why people would be trying to kill me_.

As she looked around her temporary hideout, Jay saw that Brianna's apartment couldn't be more different from the apartment building in which it was housed. The area was much smaller than Jay's apartment, with barely enough room for a leather couch and a desk to be set up with room left for visitors. It was cramped and cluttered, but Jay found it strangely warm and welcoming. The carpet was clean and felt slightly springy underfoot, a sensation that made Jay feel very cozy. The one window that was in the apartment was dirty and streaked, but showed an impressive view of the Keldabe cityscape, dominated by MandalMotors Tower stretching high over it all.

The brown walls were covered with pictures, mostly of landscapes or depictions of different areas of Keldabe. Jay noticed that they were all hand-painted, and that there were portraits of several people she knew; she saw Rame and Mia and even a still life of Vhetin's helmet.

She looked to Brianna and gestured to the pictures. "Did... did you paint these?"

The huntress glanced at the paintings, then turned away, blushing slightly. "Yeah. It's kind of a hobby of mine."

"These are fantastic," Jay said, looking closer at one of them. It was a large painting of the Kelita Falls just beyond the plaza outside the _Oyu'baat_ tapcaf, where she and Brianna had loitered for a time after the explosion at her apartment. She noticed the painting style and said, "I... I have some of these paintings in my apartment. You gave them to me at that surprise party you guys sprung."

She looked up at Brianna and said, "I never knew you were an artist."

The huntress shrugged. "Like I said, it's just a hobby."

Jay nodded slowly and continued to look at the small apartment. She noticed a wooden mannequin of female build that was propped up in one corner next to a food preserver. The mannequin was set up to hold Brianna's hunting gear, much like the armor lockers onboard Vhetin's ship. Jay recognized the scaled-down combat vest and bulky shoulder/neck guard from the time she and Vhetin had traveled with Brianna to Mon Calamari on a hunting mission.

Brianna sighed and pulled her jacket off, tossing it casually onto the mannequin's head. "This apartment used to be a surveillance hideout for Imperial Intelligence forces who were trying to spy on some kind of crime lord hiding in Keldabe in the aftermath of the Clone Wars. One of the Imperials was killed in action in here, so no one really wanted to live here. I bought it pretty cheap when I moved here."

"It used to belong to the Imperials?" Jay echoed.

Brianna nodded. "Yeah. You'll see Imperial insignias everywhere, mostly painted on the walls. Apparently Imperial Intelligence didn't want their operatives going native and forgetting they were part of the Empire."

"That sounds like the Imp's MO," Mack murmured quietly from behind Jay.

Brianna gestured to two doors along the northern wall and said, "My room is through the door on the left if you need anything. The one on the right goes to the 'fresher."

Jay nodded, making a mental note should she need to remember that later. She looked around the apartment, then noticed something odd. She frowned and asked, "So... where's Vhetin's stuff?"

Brianna cocked her head. "What do you mean?"

Jay frowned deeper and said, "Well, I assumed that since you and Vhetin were together that you'd be... you know... and that he'd be... well, living here."

Brianna stared at her, then threw her head back and burst out laughing.

"So let me get this straight," she said. "Vhetin and I can barely carry out a civilized conversation without biting each other's heads off three-quarters of the time, and you think he and I are sleeping together? Jay, I'm disappointed in you."

"I didn't mean to pry," she said quickly. "I was just confused."

"No," Brianna said, still laughing. "Vhetin and I are not sleeping together and he is definitely _not_ living with me. I don't think we could stand to be in the same room with each other for more than an hour without finding something to fight about."

"I'm pretty sure that's a sign that you two should go your separate ways," Mack suddenly piped up, standing impassively just inside the door. The expressionless T-visor of his silver helmet tilted slightly as he cocked his head and said, "You two have been struggling for years to get this relationship going. Don't you think it's time to move on?"

All trace of amusement in Brianna's expression instantly vanished, replaced by a dark scowl. She took a step forward and said, "You're in no place to voice an opinion like that, Mack. My relationship with Vhetin is none of your business."

He tilted his head toward Jay and said, "It's none of her business either."

"She was asking an innocent question," Brianna snapped. "You're just being an ass."

"Look," Jay interrupted, "I don't want any trouble. Mack's right; it is none of my business and I shouldn't have asked in the first place."

She looked to Brianna and asked, "Is it... is it okay if I use the sanisteamer? I need to get this blood off me."

The huntress nodded, still glaring at Mack. "Go ahead. Just a warning, though, the building doesn't have a flash-heater so you only have about ten minutes of hot water."

Jay thanked her, then hurried for the door to the 'fresher as she heard Brianna begin to argue with Mack again. She quickly slipped through the door, closing it firmly behind her and letting out a long breath. She closed her eyes and rested her back against the door, feeling a sudden wash of sadness wash over her.

The last thing she needed right now was to start a fight between Brianna and her Mandalorian friend. She needed a place that was quiet, someplace she could think through this whole mess.

She turned the knob to get the water running in the sanisteamer before undressing and putting her burned, dirty clothing on the edge of the washbasin. She let out a relieved sigh as she stepped into the hot stream of water, glad to be able to wash the dried blood off her face and hands.

As she washed the blood out of her hair she noticed a dark Imperial Wheel carved into the porcelain of the steamer's wall, bordered by the words _Long Live The Empire_. She remembered Brianna saying that the apartment used to belong to the Imps, but was still unprepared to see the insignia of the Empire's Navy literally millimeters from her face.

She sighed and rested her forehead against the cool surface of the porcelain, closing her eyes as a man's voice drifted into her mind, remnants of an old, cherished memory.

"_It's propaganda_," the voice said. "_It's all just there to keep people in line._"

Jay's fingers slid up the wall, brushing over the contoured symbol carved into the wall as her own voice entered the memory.

"_I get that,_" she'd said, "_but they don't need to beat people over the head with it. You see the damn thing on the walls, on reports, on the sides of TIE fighters, on flags... it's _everywhere_."_

"_It's supposed to remind you that the Emperor's watching everything,_" he said, a mock-conspiratorial tone coming into his voice. Then he'd chuckled and said, "_Doesn't work on me, though. That wrinkly old fart can't be everywhere at once._"

"_You do realize that's borderline treason, Sade_," she'd said with nervous amusement in her voice.

He'd laughed and put an arm around her shoulders, kissing her forehead. "_Don't worry about me. I'm commander of one of the best TIE squadrons in the Navy, with a flat-out gorgeous second-in-command that I love with all my heart. I'm too charming and successful to arrest."_

"_You're also an arrogant hotshot, Flyboy,_" Jay had said. "_And that's not popular with our superiors_."

_Flyboy_, Jay thought, closing her eyes to choke back the sudden wave of tears that threatened to overtake her. _That's what I called that wounded pilot. 'Don't worry, flyboy,' I said._

She shook her head, her fingertips still touching the Imperial insignia on the wall. She stared at it for a long time, feeling the calming rush of hot water pounding her back.

_Why now?_ she thought. _It's been almost a year since BlueSend, and I've managed to leave the Empire behind me and find a new life here on Mandalore._

_Am I really starting to regret my decision?_

She didn't think she was. Her last interaction with her fellow Imperials while at BlueSend had been an hours-long interrogation at the hands of the Sith Lord Darth Vader, who had beaten her within an inch of her life without even touching her. She felt an uncontrollable shiver run down her spine as she remembered the Dark Lord's invisible power as it had slithered through her mind. Even the violent bursts of lightning and telekinesis of the now-deceased Darth Draco had paled in comparison to the pure evil of Darth Vader.

As she stared at the Imperial Wheel in front of her, a new memory came into mind. This time it wasn't one of her many treasured memories of Sade, but an oath she'd taken upon her indoctrination into the Navy. The words were seared into her mind, and she doubted that she'd ever be able to forget them.

_I hereby solemnly swear that if by my life or death I can do my duty to service this great Empire, I will. _

_I swear lay down my life if necessary to protect the principles and the people under the Empire's protection. _

_I swear to obey the laws and commands of my superiors, even if it leads me to my demise._

_I swear to fight my hardest for the Empire that has given me freedom._

_For my family, my homeworld, my Empire, and my Emperor, I swear obedience, faith, and trust to the Imperial Navy. I will never break this oath, even under threat of death._

_For I am a fighter pilot, and I am a soldier of unshakeable loyalty._

She sighed and ran a hand through her wet hair, brushing the sopping strands out of her face. _Well_, she thought, _so much for that. I abandoned the Empire over a misunderstanding._

The rational side of her mind told her that it was no simple misunderstanding, that the Empire had betrayed her and left her to rot in prison before being executed. That part of her mind told her that there was some admiral out there whose reputation was as spotless as ever, despite the fact that he'd completely ruined Jay's life.

Then a thought came to her that surprised her. _Besides_, she suddenly thought, _I'm being selfish. I'm surrounded by people like Brianna, who invited me into her home in order to keep me safe from beings who are trying to kill me. And like Vhetin, who taught me how to get back at the kinds of people who would do to others what the Imperials did to me._

She stared at the Imperial Wheel beneath her fingertips, thinking, _With of all that, can I really say that my life was ruined?_

Then she thought of Sade, of his long brown hair and the dark tattoos on his arms. She thought of his quick smile, his cocky attitude, and the feel of his lips against hers. She thought of all that had been taken from her, and she knew without a doubt that her life had indeed been ruined.

But just because it had been ruined didn't mean there wasn't anything worth salvaging from it.

* * *

**Keldabe Law Enforcement Headquarters, half an hour later**

"Okay," Denton said, striding toward Mia with a sheaf of flimsi in one hand. He gestured for her to follow and they set off down the deserted hall. "I had some of my buddies in the Imperial Security Force run this cross shape through their databases for me."

"Wait a minute," Mia said, frowning as she looked up and down the empty halls of the small building. "Are you the only one here?"

He nodded, a sudden look of weariness making his shoulders slump a little. "Everyone else is up in the mountains. I'm the only enforcement officer on duty until they get back. Lucky that things just got crazy when I'm the only one, right?"

"I'm impressed," she said. "You're able to keep this entire city under control by yourself?"

"There's barely anyone here but Mandos who couldn't or wouldn't answer Shysa's call-to-arms for some reason or another and _aruetiise _who're looking after things until the _adade_ get back. It was shaping up to be a quiet night until Miss Moqena's apartment exploded."

"Hm," Mia said, beginning to feel a little more respect for this lone enforcement officer. She nodded at him, then said, "So what did you find?"

"Oh, right. Well, my buddies down at the ISF ran the shape of this burn mark through their databases, and they came up with over three thousand rough matches."

"And that's good news?"

"Wait for it," he said. "They found three thousand matches, but they narrowed their search parameters by tracing a rough sketch of what they thought the shape was. This is what they came up with."

He held out a sheet of flimsi. She held it up to the light to see an intricate cross shape displayed on the sheet. It honestly didn't look much cleaner than the burn mark in the floor.

"And?" she asked as they turned a corner. "Were they able to find a match?"

"They were," was all he said as he opened a door for her and lead her into what looked like a meeting room. There were only two or three chairs inside and the rest of the room was taken up by rough cloth sacks. The entire area reeked with the bitter scent of grassgrain produce.

"Yeah," he said when he noticed her grimace, "sorry about the smell. The meeting room also doubles as our contraband storage area. We busted this _aruetii_ about a week ago trying to smuggle spice in these sacks, mixed in with the grain. We have to keep the sacks until we're sure we've got all the drugs out."

"My husband and I work a grassgrain farm south of Keldabe," Mia said, blinking as her eyes began to water. "I've worked around this smell before, but I can't honestly say I've gotten used to it."

"Right. So as far as this symbol of yours, there were a couple matches even when they cleaned up the copy. There was really only one that made sense, though."

"How so?"

"The majority of the symbols were for simple, non-violent purposes," Denton explained. He activated a holoprojector toward the back of the room. The machine let out a loud whine and threw up the image onto the far wall of an intricately designed flower/cross symbol, accompanied by the words, _Kashyyyk Nursery Supplies_.

"I told my buddies that I seriously doubted Jay was being targeted by Wookiee flower gardeners," he said. "But that's just my opinion."

"Point taken," Mia said. "But you said there was one possible match."

"Yes," he said, pressing a button. The projector clanked and projected a different cross symbol. Unlike the Kashyyyk Nursery insignia, this cross appeared violent from the start. Comprised of angular lines and sharp angles, the symbol looked more like a blueprint for an ancient combat knife than a symbol. It was colored a dull orange and black.

"This," Denton explained, "is what's known as a Saleucami Kill-Cross."

"That doesn't sound good."

"It's not," he said, thumbing through the sheets of flimsi in his hands. "Apparently it's used as a ceremonial death threat by a Saleucami street gang who call themselves the Torch-Bomb gang. And get this: they're fond of assassinating enemies by booby trapping doors with plamsa grenades."

"Our attacker's MO," Mia said.

"Exactly."

"But that doesn't make any sense," she decided to point out. "Vhetin and Jay haven't gone anywhere near Saleucami."

He shrugged. "Someone in the gang may have noticed their work and decided they were a big enough threat to eliminate."

"So they did what? Traveled all the way from Saleucami to Mandalore to take out someone who _might_ be a threat to their tiny street gang? That's a bit far-fetched."

"What other explanation is there?" he said. "Everything's here, right down to the equipment they used to rig Jay's door."

"So where are these guys? If they were able to infiltrate Keldabe, somehow get into Jay's apartment, _and_ plant an explosive designed to kill her, where did they go?"

"The ISF has a list of most of this gang and has their pictures open for public scrutiny should anybody find them. I used those files and got alerts running at every nearby _Mando'ad_ spaceport."

"So they can't get through normal public spaceports," Mia said, narrowing her eyes as she thought through all their possible escape routes. "They'd be stupid to go near there."

She sighed and continued, "Public transportation off-planet is impossible, since they're wanted criminals with their faces archived, just waiting for any bounty hunter or vigilante in the Empire to pull 'em in. And they can't get out in their own ships because the Imperials are looking for them already and leaving without proper hyperspace clearance would draw too much attention to them."

Denton nodded, looking fairly pleased at his work. "They have no way to escape. We'll get them eventually."

"Okay," she said, temporarily satisfied. "What about the man in the vid recording we found?"

He grimaced. "No dice there, I'm afraid."

"Why not?"

He projected another image onto the wall. This time it was the Imperial Records file of the young man Mia had seen in the vid recording. His identification image that accompanied the file showed him with shorter hair patted down under a Navy-issue cap, but she recognized him almost immediately.

"This is Sade Nesson," Denton explained, "Captain, First Class, also known as Phantom One. He was the commander of a division of TIE Interceptors known as Phantom Squadron."

_Jay's former division_, Mia thought. _So that's what they meant in the recording when they said 'According to Imperial Regulation TT-38...' They were having a prohibited relationship that would have gotten them both in trouble if they were ever discovered._

If they _had_ been discovered - and punished accordingly - that would be pretty good incentive for this Sade man to want retribution for his pains. But if he'd truly been in love with Jay as he'd claimed in the recording, would he have the _gett'se _to try to kill her?

"The records show that he was busted by Imperial Enforcement officers twice for insubordination, once for disobeying a direct order. But they eventually gave him his own command, and at a pretty young age, too. Psych reports list him as responsible, but also prone to unnecessary risks. The evaluator's exact words were 'a surprisingly reliable daredevil lunatic'."

"Exactly what the Empire needed as a TIE pilot."

"Pretty much. He struggled with command of Phantom Squadron for a while, though. His fellow pilots couldn't see him as someone in an authoritative position since he was so reckless in the cockpit."

"So what happened?"

"A women named Jayshiea Kolta happened," Denton said. "Whose Records file image looks remarkably like Miss Moqena, if you ask me."

Mia's stomach dropped. She suddenly remembered that Jay had used her real name in the recording.

_Here follows the official transcript of Nesson, Sade, _the recorded Sade had said, _and Kolta, Jayshiea, Captain Third Class, serial number OC-9871Q._

By giving the recording to Denton, she had inadvertently given the enforcement officer everything he needed to blow Jay's cover; literally her name, rank and serial number.

_Damn it,_ she thought to herself. _You're getting sloppy, Mia. You've been out of this game for too long._

Since the situation couldn't be solved by any matter of clever ruses or lies, she decided that threats would have to do. She pointed a finger at Denton's chest and narrowed her eyes.

"If you've gone to the Imperials with this information," she growled, "I'll string your guts from the top of MandalMotors Tower. And _then_ I'll-"

But Denton laughed. "Don't worry. Working in this job, I know better than anyone the kind of people we have living around Keldabe. A pretty young woman who is being hunted by the Empire for a crime she obviously didn't commit isn't high on my priority list."

"Oh," Mia said, her finger dropping. She blinked and said, "Okay. As long as we're clear on this."

He nodded. "Her secret is safe with me."

Mia chastised herself one more time for letting such important information slip so easily into the open. If Denton had been an actual Imperial investigator...

_But he isn't_, she reminded herself. _He's a trustworthy _Mando'ad. _So focus on the task at hand._

"Okay," she sighed. "So what happened with this Phantom Squadron? How did Sade get control of it?"

"Jay came into the picture about a half year after he assumed command," Denton said, "when he was twenty-one and she was eighteen. The two were dynamite; Phantom had been one of the most ineffective fighter squadrons in the 603rd division, and with Jay's help Sade was able to whip his pilots into shape. They quickly became one of the top squadrons in the entire Imperial Navy."

"When did this relationship between the two start?"

"A little over six months after Jay was introduced into the squadron."

"Were they discovered? Is it possible that this Sade guy wants revenge for being kicked out of the Navy?"

He shook his head. "There's nothing on the report about anything like that. Apparently they were able to keep it a secret."

_Well, there goes the 'vengeful ex-boyfriend' theory_, Mia thought to herself. She rubbed her eyes wearily. "Okay. Where is this Sade guy now? We might need to contact him before long."

"That might be hard. Or impossible."

"How so?"

Denton projected another report up onto the wall. This one was a post-battle report, submitted by some Imperial bureaucrat Mia didn't bother to note.

"About two years after Jay joined Phantom Squadron," he said, summarizing the report, "they were deployed to stifle insurrectionist activity in what's left of the Malachor system. But whoever initiated the strike had a leak in their division, because the rebels knew exactly where the Imperial forces were coming from."

Mia felt another sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach as he continued, "The eight Interceptor squadrons that were deployed suffered heavy casualties. Since Interceptors don't have shields, they were cut to pieces."

He paused, then said, "Captain Sade Nesson is listed as Killed-In-Action in that battle."

Mia's hand went to her mouth as she stifled a gasp. "Oh no. But Jay..."

"Jay was the only survivor," he said, shutting down the projector with a sigh.

"Oh, that poor girl," she whispered. "She would have been _right there _when it happened."

"I'm not judging," Denton said quietly, "but those 'no relationships' regulations are there for a reason."

"And to think... she's been living here for almost a year and she's never even mentioned his name."

"A trauma like that," Denton said, "she may have purposely tried to avoid the subject so she didn't have to relive the memory of what she went through."

"I just can't believe she didn't tell someone," she said. "I can get Vhetin keeping quiet about his past, but Jay? Not a chance."

"Just goes to show you," he said, shrugging, "No matter how well you know someone..."

"Yeah," Mia said. "Well, that's her business, not ours. So let's see if we can track down this Torch-Bomb gang. Are there any members in Keldabe?"

"I sent a call to Aramis at the _Oyu'baat_. He says that he saw two of the guys on the wanted list this afternoon in the plaza outside the tapcaf. I'm sure someone around there saw where they went."

"Then what're we waiting for?" she said, a grin tugging at her lips. "Let's go introduce ourselves."

* * *

**Brianna's apartment, downtown Keldabe**

After Jay had washed the blood out of her hair and off her face, she shut off the water and stepped out the sanisteamer. She saw with some surprise that Brianna had left her a freshly folded stack of clean clothes on the edge of the washbasin. There was a note resting on top of the pile, written in Brianna's hand: _Heading out to get something to eat. Found this stuff in the back of my closet. Might be a little small on you, but it's better than nothing._

Jay was thankful, as her own clothes were stained with blood and ash and dirt. She quickly toweled herself off and double-checked in the steamy mirror that she'd managed to wash all the blood off of her.

Brianna was a few inches shorter than Jay, so her evaluation that the clothes would be a little small was right. She quickly pulled on a pair of gray work pants, loosening the waistband a little, and pulled a dark blue tank top over her head.

Luckily, Jay's new gray jacket was mostly unaffected. The seemingly lightweight cloth was more durable than it looked, and it seemed to have shed most of the ash and blood away from its surface.

After she had dressed, she stepped back out into Brianna's apartment and saw that the huntress was nowhere to be seen. Mack, however, was still standing just inside the door, his helmet clipped to his belt. She was surprised to see that he was only a little older than she was. He had dark eyes and dark hair that was cut close to his scalp.

At the sound of the fresher door opening, he looked up at her and murmured, "Feel better?"

"Much better," she replied. "Is Brianna back yet?"

"Not yet. She went down to the market to get some food. She said to make yourself comfortable."

"Right," she sighed, pulling her damp hair back in a ponytail. "Anything happen while I was in the steamer?"

He shook his head. "All quiet."

"Good." Jay slowly sat down on the couch near the back wall, leaning her head back and letting out a long sigh.

Her mind began to wander, and she found herself once again thinking back to the Imperial insignia on the wall of the steamer.

She wasn't about to lie and say that the memories the symbol dredged up weren't painful. But she also wasn't going to cry her guts out at the mere sight of a picture on the wall. She was tougher than that.

She smiled slightly and shook her head, staring at the ceiling. And to think that she had chastised Vhetin for keeping secrets. She'd never told her partner that she'd had a lover while serving with the Navy, or that he'd been deemed KIA in the same conflict that had sent her to prison.

Vhetin had secrets, it was sure. But at least he'd had the guts not to deny it.

_I've chewed Cin out on multiple occasions for not being honest with me, _she thought to herself. _Does that make me a hypocrite?_

She didn't know the answer, but she feared the worst. She closed her eyes, feeling a sudden weariness sweep over her. She hadn't realized just how tired she was until just now. She leaned back and laid out on her back on the couch, folding her arms and taking a deep breath.

_Mack is guarding the door_, she thought, _Brianna's on her way back with food. I think I have time for some rest. I'm safe here._

She didn't know exactly when she fell asleep. One moment she was breathing in and out in a slow, even pace, then she felt as if her entire body was plunged in ice.

She opened her eyes and found herself in the cockpit of a TIE fighter. Explosions rocked her ship and adrenaline shot through her system.

"No," she whispered as she recognized the battle outside. "No, that's not possible."

"Phantom Two," came an achingly familiar voice over the ship's comm, "fall in behind Three and Four and try and circle around the enemy. Flush 'em toward the asteroids. Five, Six, and I will take it from there."

"S-Sade?" she whispered. "Is that you?"

"Who else would it be?" he snapped. "And why are you using real names over the comm, Two? Come on, stay focused."

"No," she whispered, holding her head between her hands. She shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut and whispering, "This isn't happening. This is over."

"Phantom Two!" Sade shouted over the comm. "Get into formation, and that's an order!"

Jay's training kicked in instantly. Her gaze snapped up and she grasped the control yoke of her fighter, swinging the TIE Interceptor around to follow the trajectories of Turina and Oppan, Phantoms Three and Four.

"This is Phantom Two," she transmitted over her comm, "coming around. You ready to do your part, Flyboy?"

"As always," he said, his voice tight with concentration. "When we get back to base, the drinks are on me, guys."

There had been a chorus of cheers over the comm, and Jay's blood once again went cold. Events were unfolding just as they had almost a year ago at Malachor. Any moment now-

"New contacts!" Yessir, Phantom Five, suddenly shouted. "New contacts, coming out of the asteroid field!"

"It's a trap!" Sade shouted. Jay could see his black TIE Interceptor swooping around to face the new incoming ships. "Heads up, people! Things just got interesting!"

He began barking orders into the comm, but Jay didn't listen to them. She rocketed past his ship, heading straight for the new ships. She could see over fifteen outdated Z-95 Headhunter fighters, several equally outdated Y-wing bombers, and the oblong shapes of three Nebulon-B frigates.

She was _not_ going to let this battle unfold the same way as it had last time. She would save Phantom Squadron, would save _him_, even if it cost her her life.

_I hereby solemnly swear_, she thought, her face turning down in a scowl of determination, _that if by my life or death I can do my duty to service this great Empire, I will. _

As soon as she was close enough, she mashed the trigger of her fighter. Bright green laser bolts flashed out from the four mounted cannons of her Interceptor. She saw one, two, three Z-95s blink out in silent detonations and puffs of escaping exhaust. She kept firing and a Y-wing's shields flared and failed. Her cannon bolts stitched smoking holes along the ship's hull and it spun out of control for a moment before crashing into the side of an asteroid and disappearing in a yellowish explosion.

_I swear to fight my hardest for the Empire that has given me freedom_, she continued, cutting her way through the enemy forces. She yanked back and forth on the control yoke, sending her Interceptor into wild high-speed spins and turns that the enemy pilots found almost impossible to follow.

"Phantom Two!" Sade shouted, "What the _hell_ are you doing?"

"I've got these contacts," she shouted back over the comm, "just focus on your own enemies."

"Get back into formation!"

"Kriff that," she snapped.

"I'll have you written up on insubordination charges," he warned her. She knew he was bluffing though; Sade wouldn't have her written up on charges even if she shot a Navy Admiral. He loved her too much to do something like that.

"I'm not going to lose you again," she whispered. "I love you too much, Sade."

"What the kark are you talking about? I'm-"

Then she shut off the comm, cutting off his words now. She knew she'd be fine, that she would rip these enemy contacts to shreds. After all, she was in her element now. She was one of the best pilots in the Navy. Her place was here, in the cockpit, racing into the heat of battle.

_For my family, my homeworld,_ she thought as more and more enemy ships exploded into flame, _my Empire, and my Emperor, I swear obedience, faith, and trust to the Imperial Navy. I will never break this oath, even under threat of death._

_For I am a fighter pilot, and I am a soldier of unshakeable loyalty._

She had shot her way through almost half of the new forces when Oppan's gravelly voice came on comms again. "More contacts, bearing Twenty-Bantha-Bravo."

"What?" Jay said, whipping her gaze toward her ship's scopes. That wasn't right; the bulk of the enemy contacts were _here_. These were the ships that had torn Phantom Squadron apart, ambushing them from behind the asteroids.

"Contact incoming!" Turina cried. Jay saw her Interceptor streaking toward a slower Z-95. As she opened up with her cannons, however, another ship swooped behind her and began hassling her with laser fire.

Yessir's Interceptor swung around and opened up at the enemy fighter, but it dodged out of the way. His bright cannon bolts exploded against Turina's hull instead. The ball-like cockpit vented atmosphere for a moment, spraying grayish gas into the void of interstellar space.

"Friendly fire!" Turina as her ship began to drift, powerless, away from the battle. "Friendly-"

A moment later her ship disappeared in a bright blue-white detonation of overloading ion engines.

"Phantom Two!" Oppan shouted. "Damn it, Yessir, you killed her! You bastard!"

"I-I didn't know that fighter was going to-"

"You killed her! She's dead now because-"

Oppan's fighter exploded next as a Y-wing's missile streaked through space and punctured his ship's front viewport. Shrapnel went rocketing through space and his Interceptor's contoured wings fluttered away into the blackness.

"No!" Jay screamed, frantically swinging her fighter around and racing toward the new battlefield.

_No, no, no_, she thought, her heart racing. _It's happening all over again, just like last time. No, no, don't let this be happening. Don't make me go through this all over again._

She saw the rest of Phantom go down as she raced back for the battlefield, one by one being overwhelmed by the forces attacking them. She was dimly aware of the battle raging all around her as other TIE squadrons moved to assist the outnumbered Phantom Squad, but had eyes only for her friends as they slowly succumbed to enemy fire.

"No," she muttered, jaw clenched in a mixture of fear and hatred for the enemy fighter pilots. "No, this isn't going to happen again. I'm not going to lose him again."

Then she let out a cry of horror as she saw Sade's fighter take fire for the second time in her memory. Bright red cannon bolts exploded along his starboard collector wing, and it spun away in a glittering cloud of superheated gas and shrapnel. His ship began to spin widely out of control.

"Sade!" she screamed. "Sade, come in! Talk to me!"

His voice came over the comm, tight with concentration. "I... I can't hold her. I'm losing control."

"Stay strapped in," she cried, increasing her ship's engine throttle well over safety level. She heard her Interceptor's engines screaming as she flashed through space toward his stricken fighter. "I'm coming to get you."

"No!" he shouted as his ship began to spin faster. His other wing was ripped from its housing by the velocity, spinning off into space. "No, fall back. Get reinforcements. We're going to lose this battle, but we can't let these guys get away."

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I'm not leaving you."

"You have to," he said, his voice shaking as he struggled to get his mangled ship righted. "There's... no other choice."

"No, I'm _not leaving you_," she said, tears running down her cheeks. She knew how this was going to end. She'd lived through it once before. "Not again!"

"I'm sorry, Jay," he said. "I love-"

Then a Z-95 swooped in and opened fire, blasting his ship into a cloud of gas, twisted viewport pylons, and flame. Jay had screamed his name, frantically reaching for the viewport of her ship, as if she could reach out and pluck her lover form the cold void of space with her bare hands.

"Sade!" she sobbed. "Sade, baby, come in! Please, don't leave me!"

Then the Z-95 that had killed Sade swooped around again and pounded Jay's ship with cannon fire. She hadn't moved, still screaming his name as she felt the bulkheads tear apart. Then she'd screamed in fear as she felt an ice-cold storm surround her as she was sucked out into the endless emptiness of space and-

"Jay? Jay, come on, wake up." Jay frowned as she heard a smooth Coruscanti accent.

She sat bolt-upright on the couch, instinctively reaching for her pistol. But her weapon had been abandoned on her previous contract, and her fingers touched only her belt. She blinked and looked around, momentarily confused as to where she was. Then she saw the walls covered with paintings and relaxed.

"Sorry," she murmured, sitting back on the couch and wiping sweat from her forehead.

Brianna fixed her with a sympathetic look, setting down an armful of groceries. "Are you okay? You were having one hell of a dream."

"A nightmare," she corrected, closing her eyes and trying to banish the image of Sade's fighter exploding, tearing her heart apart as well as his ship.

"You kept muttering _sade, sade_," Brianna said, opening her food preserver and beginning to unload food containers inside. "What's that?"

"What?" Jay frowned, then said, "Oh, it... it's nothing."

"It didn't sound like nothing," Mack observed, still standing at the door. "If I had to guess-"

"It's none of your business," she snapped. "Stay out of it."

He raised an eyebrow but fell silent.

"Well," Brianna said, "I convinced the market manager to stay open a little longer and I brought back everything I managed to get my hands on. Are you hungry?"

"Not really," Jay said, sitting up and putting her face in her hands. In truth, her stomach was rolling, and she felt like she was going to throw up. She hadn't had a dream like that in a long time.

_At least not since those early days at BlueSend_, she thought. But deep within the bowels of the Imperial prison, she'd quickly learned that dwelling on the past was one of the quickest ways to become a target.

So she had shoved the memory of the Malachor battle to the back of her mind, struggling furiously in her moments of solitude not to allow her mind to wander back to that horrible day. She had adopted a ruthless, no-nonsense mindset, convincing herself that she couldn't under any circumstances think about it because she knew it would destroy her if she let it.

So why were the memories coming to the forefront of her mind now?

She sighed and looked around the apartment. As her gaze moved over the array of paintings hung on the walls or propped against the walls, she noticed there was one unfinished picture sitting on the desk along the northern wall of the tiny apartment. She slowly stood and stepped toward it, studying it closely.

It was a portrait, and Jay instantly recognized Brianna's light brown hair and somewhat revealing hunting gear. But there was a second figure in the painting that Jay couldn't see clearly, and the two were embracing each other. The painting faded away into long streaks of paint toward the bottom of the canvas, as if all the life was draining out of the painting. She noticed with some surprise that the shape of the two figure's bodies made a heart.

"You like it?" came Brianna's voice from behind her. Jay jumped and spun, blushing guiltily as she saw the other woman looking at her with an amused expression, a thin eyebrow raised.

"I-I'm sorry," she said. "I wasn't trying to be nosy. I just saw the picture and thought it was kind of interesting."

Brianna set down the grocery bags in her hands and stepped past Jay. She picked up the painting, looking at it with affection. "I was experimenting with artistic overtones on a realistic portrait," she said. "I'm pretty proud of this one."

She fell silent for a moment, then quietly said, "It's Cin."

"I'm sorry?"

"The other person in the picture," she said, setting the picture down again. "It's supposed to be Cin."

"That's romantic," Jay began, but then noticed again the messy streaks of paint that ran down the bottom of the page, as if the picture was melting away in front of her eyes. "I think."

She chuckled, though there was little humor in the sound. Instead, Jay sensed a sadness she knew all too well; a despair caused by loss. But she and Vhetin maintained a steady - if tense - relationship. Who had Brianna lost when she openly admitted that she loved Vhetin?

"It's symbolic of my relationship with Cin," she said, still staring at the picture with a distracted gaze. "Loving and romantic on the surface, but hollow and empty in reality."

"Come on," Jay said. "That's not true. I've seen the way Vhetin looks at you."

"What, through his helmet visor?"

"Well..." she hesitated, then said, "Whenever you two fight, it really tears him up."

"I know it does," Brianna sighed. She set the painting down and rubbed her eyes wearily. "I know. But he's done something to himself since I first met him. It's more than nervousness around me; he really can't respond to my feelings. It's impossible for him."

"He may be a little cold," Jay said slowly, "but that doesn't mean he doesn't love you."

"Any relationship depends on the ability to overcome adversity," Mack chipped in from his post at the door.

"Oh yeah, and a human ice cube like you would know," Brianna said, a hint of amusement finally come into her voice.

Jay frowned, sitting back down on the couch and staring at the floor. She took a long time to sum up the words, then she said, "You... you're an incredibly lucky woman, Brianna. I... I know of a lot of people who would give anything to have what you have."

"What, to have _Cin_?" Brianna said. "Jay, have you been inhaling spice? Cin isn't exactly the best boyfriend in the galaxy."

"But you love each other," Jay insisted. "Many beings would kill just for that."

The huntress stared at her, then slowly nodded. "I guess."

She sat down next to Jay and said, "He may be cold, but he's always there when I need him. He's... I guess he can be thoughtful on occasion. And yes, I know he loves me, even if he finds it hard to say so sometimes."

"Exactly."

They fell into silence, all lost in their own thoughts. Eventually, Brianna broke the silence by clapping her hands on her pants and saying, "That reminds me: I need to call Vhetin and tell him what's going on. He'd blow a nut if he was the last one to find out that someone tried to kill his partner."

"Trying."

Brianna turned to Mack and said, "What did you say?"

"That someone was _trying_ to kill his partner," the silver-armored Mandalorian said quietly. "I get the feeling this whole mess isn't over yet."

"You blew the roof off that building," Jay said, relieved that the conversation was slowly drifting away from the subject of troubled love. It struck too close to painful memories for her to be comfortable. "What makes you think it's not over?"

"Just a _beroya_'s hunch," was all the Mando would say. Then he folded his arms and stared at the floor, pointedly refusing to say more.

Brianna stared at him, then said, "Whatever. I'm going to call Cin and tell him what the hell's going on."

She grabbed her comlink from the edge of the desk and retreated into the privacy of her room. Jay heard the quiet beeps as she typed in a transmission code.

Several long minutes passed - comm signal reception was spotty up in the mountains - before the huntress finally got through to him.

Jay tried not to eavesdrop. But the call did pertain to her, and she had to concentrate on something to take her mind off her dream and the fresh wound it tore in her already-broken heart.

The conversation started out similar to what Jay remembered of many comm calls between herself and Sade. Brianna toyed with her boyfriend for a bit, told him that she loved him and couldn't wait until he got home.

Jay thought about what Brianna had said, about Vhetin being physically unable to return her feelings. Jay truly believed that Vhetin loved Brianna, but his behavior toward her was certainly odd. The two had been going out for almost five years. Many people would have been married by that time, and the two bounty hunters seemed to still be in the early stages of their relationship.

She shook her head slightly as she listened to Brianna's muffled voice. Vhetin wasn't exactly the galaxy's gift to social tradition, but five years and he still had trouble saying 'I love you' in public?

No wonder Brianna was getting frustrated.

Sure enough, as Jay continued to listen, Brianna's voice took on a definite tense edge.

"No, I'm not overreacting," she said. "Yes. Jay's staying with me until we can sort this whole deal out."

She paused a moment, then said, "Of course I've taken the appropriate precautions. I'm _not_ trying to pick a fight. Maybe if your attitude wasn't so pissy we'd be able to carry out a halfway-civilized conversation!"

Another pause. "Well if I'm so obviously inept, why don't _you_ get back down here? She's _your_ partner, not mine. Don't try and turn this all on me; I called to warn you that someone tried to blow up your partner's apartment, then ambushed her in kriffing _Keldabe_, and you bit my karking head off!"

She was actually shouting now. "Fine then! You're welcome you brainless son of a bitch!"

The door to her room flew open and Brianna appeared in the doorway. She threw the comlink across the room with a livid shout. It bounced off the back wall and shattered with a loud _crack_. The pieces skittered across the carpeted floor.

"I take it that conversation didn't go too well," Mack calmly observed. He'd obviously been listening to the conversation.

Brianna sighed and sat down on the arm of the leather couch. She buried her face in her hands and murmured, "He's just so... so damn _frustrating_. Everything about him. One minute he's the perfect boyfriend - caring, considerate, funny - and the next he doesn't even want to talk to me!"

"He sounds like quite a catch," Mack said. "Have you considered poisoning him in his sleep?"

Both Brianna and Jay glared at him. He looked between the two and said, "What?"

"Vhetin may not be the most friendly guy in the universe," Jay said, "but he's an honorable man."

"I've known him for almost seven years," Brianna added. "I love him more than anyone else in the world. So don't even joke about stuff like that or I'll kick you out now."

"Fine," Mack sighed. "Don't listen to me."

He suddenly turned his dark gaze on Jay and said, "So. Who is Sade?"

Jay's heart skipped a beat at the sound of the name spoken by someone other than herself. It had been a very long time since she'd heard his name out loud.

"What…" she swallowed, her mouth suddenly very dry. "What are you talking about?"

"You were repeating the name over and over while you were sleeping. Who is he?"

"Mack…" Brianna said in a cautionary tone. "Play nice."

"I'm just curious," Mack said. "Who is he? He's an ex-boyfriend, isn't he?"

"Not exactly."

"Ooh," he said, a half-smile tugging at his lips. "The plot thickens. Might he be someone who's trying to kill you?"

"_No_," Jay said forcefully. "Sade would never have hurt me."

Brianna frowned. "_Would_ have?"

Jay sighed, not enjoying all the attention on her. She stared at the carpet and thought, _I guess that's what I get for dwelling on the past. _Again_._

"He... he was my brother," she lied. The last thing she wanted to do was relive those painful memories again.

Brianna saw right through the falsehood, though. She fixed him with a skeptical gaze and raised an eyebrow. "That's a load of _osik_. People don't cry out for their brother like you did for this Sade guy. I'm guessing he was someone very close to you."

Jay shook her head and laughed a little, though there was little humor in the sound. "Damn your bounty hunter logic."

"You don't have to tell me... you know, if you don't want to."

"No," she said, her mind already made up. "I have to tell someone, I guess. It's not doing me any good just stewing inside me."

She took a deep breath, then said, "He was my boyfriend. While I was serving with the Navy. But... he was more than that, you know? We were inseparable almost from the moment we first met."

Brianna nodded. "I know the feeling. What happened? Did he leave you?"

"No. He... he died."

"Oh." Brianna's voice was suddenly very quiet. "I'm sorry. What happened?"

"Killed-in-action," Jay said, avoiding the gazes of both Brianna and Mack. She could feel the silver-armored Mandalorian's eyes boring into her, as if he could see right through her. She stared at the floor and said, "It was the same deployment that got me sent to prison."

"You... you've never spoken about this before."

Jay shrugged. "I've never had the courage. I've tried not to think about it. It wasn't hard, since Vhetin had kept me busy on different hunting contracts in the past few months. But now…"

"You feel like you're alone," Brianna said, nodding. She hesitated, then said, "I know how you feel. I know how it feel to believe you're completely alone in the universe."

"What do you mean?" Jay said. Brianna seemed like she had everything; good friends, peers who respected her, and a boyfriend she loved. How could she possibly know how Jay felt, know how it felt to have everything taken away from her in a matter of moments.

Brianna sighed and pulled a hair clip out from her loose braid. She shook her hair loose, as if she were loosening up for a major revelation.

"I don't talk about it much," she said quietly, "mostly because I try not to think about it. I'm like you in that way. But…"

She shrugged and said, "I'm a runaway."

"A runaway?"

The huntress nodded. "I ran away from my parents when I was just a teenager."

"I'm sorry," Jay said. "That must have been hard. What happened?"

"I was born on Coruscant," Brianna said. "My parents were major real-estate moguls. They made millions of credits every week, and we had more money total than some poor planetary governments."

"Interesting way to start your career," Mack said, folding his arms across his chest. "Running away from all that money."

"It wasn't the money," Brianna said. "It was the principle of the entire thing. My parents had no problems exploiting beings under their income level. They _reveled_ in it, like it was a game for them."

She shrugged. "From a very early age, it was apparent that I was a rebellious spirit. I secretly snuck out at nights, creeping down into the Underworld."

"As a kid?" Mack said, raising an eyebrow. "That took some _gett'se_."

"I would sneak down to a cantina in the Underworld near where I lived, trying to get a glimpse of the world outside that of my parents," she said. "I befriended a group of mercenaries that kept me from getting kidnapped or killed. They taught me how to fight, how to defend myself."

She stood, walking over to her hunting gear and pulling her twin pistols from the holsters on the suit's belt. She spun the weapons around her fingers for a moment and turned back to Jay.

"My favorite teacher, a Twi'lek bounty hunter named Paseyus, gave me these. They were his pride and joy, and he presented them as a gift when he admitted that I had nothing more to learn from him."

The huntress held one of the pistols out to Jay, who took it gingerly. She'd seen Brianna use the weapons before, but had never seen them close up. As she turned the pistol over in her hand, she saw that it was a BlasTech model, angular and weighted toward the palm grip. The weapons were surprisingly heavy, made of a durable alloy that was scarred and weathered by years of use. They were obviously very old, almost antique.

After seeing them used in Brianna's hands, however, Jay knew they were anything but harmless. During a run through a MandalMotors simulator, Jay had seen her drop six targets within the blink of an eye.

"So what happened?" Jay asked, gently handing back the weapon.

Brianna shrugged, replacing the pistols and patting the leather holsters affectionately. "My parents found out eventually. As you could imagine, they were horrified that a _civilized young girl_ such as myself would be cavorting about the Underworld with scumbag mercenaries."

She sighed, still staring at the mannequin holding her gear. "They had the entire group of mercenaries arrested for abusing me. The CSF gobbled the lie up, too eager to make such a large collection of arrests to even think that my parents were lying.

"And so my friends were all sent to rot in prison for the rest of their lives," she said, turning back to Jay. "And there was absolutely nothing I could do about it."

Jay listened intently as the huntress continued, "That night I snuck out of my parent's penthouse again. The guard they posted at the door to keep me inside was the best that money could buy, but my parents were too proud to go through Underworld channels and get a _real _bodyguard. I snuck past him easily and ran away. I never looked back."

Jay blinked slowly, thinking over this. Brianna saw her thoughtful gaze and said, "I'm not trying to say that I've had a harder life than you. I'm just trying to show you that you're not the only one who's lost people they care about, and you won't be the last."

She shook her head. "Hell, even Cin's got some horror stories to tell."

Jay looked up at the woman and said, "Like what? He's never talked about anything like that before."

"He has his reasons for that, I know," Brianna said, looking suddenly uncomfortable. "All I'm going to say is that he's lost more than most. Maybe even more than you, Jay."

"I find that hard to believe."

"So do I, sometimes," she sighed, sitting back down on the couch. "All I'm saying is that all of us who are here on Mandalore are here for a reason. You can't throw a stun grenade in this town without finding someone with a rough past. Mandalore attracts lost people like you and me; it draws us in with the promise of family, respect, and love."

"And easy mercenary work," Mack said quietly.

"Sometimes we find it..." Brianna turned her gaze to the remains of her shattered comlink. It didn't take a mind reader to tell she was thinking about Vhetin.

"And sometimes," she sighed, "it's a little harder to get to."

**Mack appears courtesy of UnknownOrigin45 of Deviantart. com.**


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Ba'slan Shevla

**_Oyu'baat _Tapcaf, after hours, uptown Keldabe**

"Come on in," Aramis said, holding the door open for Mia and Denton as they stepped inside. "You're late."

"Imperial security at the barrier wall checkpoints is tight this time of night," Denton sighed, wiping his boots on the mat in front of the door. "The stupid _aruetiise_ almost had us arrested for loitering."

"Don't I know it," the gray-haired bartender said, his intense gaze softening slightly in sympathy. "They're makin' it so that most Mandos can't even come around here after work hours. Bloody Imps."

"You said you had some information for us?" Mia asked, adjusting her jacket. It was almost midnight now, and the temperature had dropped significantly from the warm afternoon.

He nodded. "You sent me the pics of that whatchamacallit-"

"Torch-Bomb Gang," Mia supplied.

"Aye, that," he said, nodding as he stepped up behind the bar. "You sent me the pics of those guys and I'm pretty sure I saw some of 'em hangin' around."

"Can you tell us where they went?"

He allowed himself a rare smile and said, "I can do more than that, _vode_."

He tossed a sheaf of flimsi onto the bartop and said, "I talked to some of the guys around town, askin' what they knew. That's all I could pull up on these _chakaare."_

Denton moved to grab the flimsi, but Mia beat him to it. She snatched the report and quickly read through it.

_From the desk of the Imperial Governor of Saleucami, in response to newly implemented reporting protocols on ongoing criminal investigations in the Saluecami sector:_

_The entrapment and capture of the so-called Torch-Bomb Gang here on Saleucami continues to be an irksome endeavor. For a simple street gang, they are proving increasingly elusive. Just this month, they have managed to destroy no less than three Imperial supply depots, a medcenter, and a HoloNet news transponder. They are also suspected to be involved with several murders. _

_Their 'mode of operations' (MO) is one of the few factors that allows local law enforcement officers to keep on their trail. They are particularly fond of booby-trapping building doors with plasma grenades. When the victim walks in the grenade is tripped, in most cases reducing the victims to little more than ash._

_We have requested additional enforcement officers to be assigned to this case, as well as requested assistance from the nearest branch of the Imperial Intelligence Investigative Department. Our officers believe the gang to be growing daily, and even beginning to reach out to neighboring systems. We must deal with this problem before this street gang develops into a complete criminal syndicate._

_Known members of this organization include:_

_Reeko "Scaleback" Qoria. Nikto male. Known weapons smuggler._

_Moraeda Voreen. Zeltron female. Convicted spice dealer turned scout and recruiter for the gang._

_Xedrox "Triple X" Xerion. Human male. Known hitman for the gang._

Mia looked through the rest of the flimsi and saw a four-page list of all the members of the organization. There were hundreds of them, most with bounties on their heads.

"How in _te Manda_ were you able to pick two members out of this mess?" she asked as she thumbed through the flimsi sheets.

The bartender tapped his forehead. "A _Mando'ad_ like myself doesn't work as long as I have in this cantina not being able to remember bounties customers might be looking for. You of all people, _Mi'ika,_ should know that the _Oyu'baat _doesn't just sell drinks. If the price is right... who knows what someone could find out in here?"

"How much would it cost us for you to give us the whereabouts of the two gang members you saw earlier?" Denton asked, raising an eyebrow.

Aramis frowned at him and said, "I do make exceptions, _vod_. I happen to like Moqena. She's a well-behaved customer who pays well. That gets people far with me, so this one's on the house."

"So who did you see earlier?" Mia said, handing him the flimsi sheets.

He leafed the sheets, his brow furrowed in concentration. He eventually handed her a sheet and tapped two names. Mia looked at the names, quickly committing them to memory.

_Borjo Kamka. Human male. Known hitman for the gang and explosives expert._

_Emiiwa-Toria-Vassicus. Chiss male. Scout for the gang. Specializes in high-risk infiltration. Former Imperial Special Forces._

"Well," Denton said, reading over Mia's shoulder, "that would explain how these guys got into Jay's apartment. If one of them is an infiltrator and the other is an explosives expert... well, it doesn't take an enforcement officer like me to put two and two together."

Mia looked up at Aramis and said, "Where are these guys? Can you give us a location?"

He nodded. "They've been staying right here in Keldabe for about eight months. Probably scouting out Moqena's apartment and studying her routine. I have their addresses if you'll just _pare _a moment."

As he wrote them down on a scrap of napkin, Denton folded his gauntleted arms and said, "If these guys have any sense, they won't be living in the same area of the city. We'll have to move in simultaneously or risk one of 'em tipping off the other."

She nodded. "If we can keep in comm contact, we can hit both their hideouts at the same time. Take them both by surprise and reel them in before they realize what hit them."

Aramis handed Mia the addresses and she quickly read them off.

"It looks like Kamka is living in an apartment building just outside the MandalMotors district. Sector Tee-Twenty-Three building, Room Thirteen."

"Room Thirteen," Denton nodded.

"Vassicus is... not far from here, hiding out in the rooms above a nerf processing plant. Pretty secluded from what I can remember of the place."

"Okay," he said. "I'll take Kamka. If he's in an apartment, I'll probably need to flash my enforcement badge to someone or be accused of kidnapping. With a secluded place like where Vassicus is hiding out, you shouldn't have that problem."

"Right. I need to check up on Jay and Brianna before we get to work, but I'll contact you when I'm on my way. We'll meet up at the enforcement headquarters?"

He nodded and pulled his gold/gray helmet over his head. "Keep in constant comm contact. If anything's out of place, we call off the hit."

"Deal," Mia said. "Thanks for the intel Aramis."

He bowed his grizzled head slightly and said, "Always a pleasure to be of service to one of the Omotaos. Give Rame my best, will you?"

"I promise," she replied before she and Denton stepped out into the night outside.

_Oh, Rame, _she thought with the hint of a smile, _if only you were in Keldabe to see me now._ _I've been out of this game for _way _too long._

* * *

**Brianna's apartment, downtown Keldabe**

Brianna stared at the carpet for a long time, still thinking about Cin. Her conversation with Jay had meant to comfort the other woman, yet it had surprisingly brought back only troubled memories to her own mind.

It seemed so long ago that she had met Cin, yet it sometimes still seemed like just yesterday. Five years… there was no denying that it was a long time to be involved with someone. She wasn't about to lie to herself and say that marriage had not crossed her mind, but she was satisfied with her relationship with him. After all, Mandalorians were supposed to be flexible with stuff like that, right?

She had been flexible all right, going along with every pitfall or problem Cin had. She'd always been there for him, to repay him for the faith and loyalty he showed her. But as the years wore on and he grew more and more distant from her, she began to realize that he had changed. He would never go back to being the quiet, thoughtful man she'd fallen in love with.

_You're an incredibly lucky woman, Brianna_, Jay had said to her earlier. _I know of a lot of people who would give anything to have what you have._

Jay was right. She could do a lot worse than Cin and she was lucky to have a man who loved her, even if it was hard to see sometimes. She thought of what Jay had gone through, falling in love only to have it snatched away from her. She couldn't imagine what that would feel like. If Vhetin were killed on some hunting mission... she didn't now how she'd be able to go on.

She smiled slightly, one of the first times in a while that she'd done so while thinking of him.

She still remembered that moment when she'd first met him. His eyes were what she remembered most. She had been standing over him, watching him as he slept. He'd opened those dark blue eyes, looking up at her with a confused stare. He hadn't said anything, and he hadn't had to; she remembered her heart skipping a beat when that gaze had fallen upon her. She hadn't been able to help herself, and had smiled at him.

They hadn't been romantically involved at first; they had just been friends. But she had been attracted to him from the start, and he'd been drawn to her from almost the moment he had arrived on Mandalore.

She smiled a little wider as she remembered their first date. It had been her idea; Vhetin had just gone through a rather rough combat simulation in which he'd sustained several minor injuries. She had suggested that they share dinner together so Vhetin wouldn't have to return to his room at the Omotao Farm and nurse his injuries like a wounded Kath Hound.

They'd had their meal here, right in her apartment. They'd sat together on this very couch, mere inches from each other. He'd accepted her invitation, but had spent most of the date in thoughtful silence, staring at his plate of simple fried nuna wings with a frown on his face. She'd been a little confused by his attitude, but didn't think much of it. She'd been on worse dates, after all.

Their first kiss she remembered even better than the date. IT had been months later, and she remembered she had been crying, as Vhetin had been going through a rather rough period of deep depression. She had yelled at him to pull himself together and think of someone other than himself, that there were other people who cared about him no matter how strongly he believed to the contrary. As she had started to turn away, ready to storm out of the room, he'd touched her shoulder gently and kissed her ever so softly on the lips.

She remembered the surprise and shock she'd felt. A kiss from Vhetin, who had never so much as purposely touched her hand before? She had almost broken off the kiss just to ask him about it.

For the next year, her relationship had been all but heaven. Vhetin became an ideal boyfriend; he was caring, considerate, and was always – _always_ – there for her. No matter what problem she was confronted with he was always the one person she could count on no matter what.

But now…

She shook her head and said, "Well, enough from me. Who's hungry?"

"Starving," Jay muttered. "What did you manage to get at the market?"

"Everything I could get my hands on," Brianna said, standing and heading over to the food preserver. "Let's see... we've got nerf burgers, fried nuna — wings, legs, and breasts, whichever you'd prefer — as well as rorros, spiced carola casserole, and tennier pie and _uj_ cake for desser-"

She was cut off when there was suddenly a loud _bam_ and her window shattered inward. She spun toward the window in time to see a small cylindrical object bounce across her carpeted floor. A small bright red light began to flash on the top of the cylinder, accompanied by a high-pitched beeping.

"Oh _shab_," she muttered, then shouted, "_Down!"_

Jay cursed and dove over the back of the couch. Mack turned his head away, pulling his helmet over his head. Brianna dove into the nearest corner, tucking her arms close to her chest.

There was a deafening _boom_, loud enough to shake the floor. A bright flash of light erupted through the room, blinding Brianna even through her eyelids.

"Flashbang," Mack growled, unaffected by the flash because of his helmet's polarizing HUD. His voice was muffled, drowned out by the ringing in Brianna's ears and she had to strain to hear him.

She slowly rose to her feet, shaking her head to clear the ringing in her ears. She turned toward the source of the blast, seeing a dark black scorch mark in the floor where the grenade had detonated. Smoke wafted up from the burned carpet in lazy gray trails, making Brianna's eyes water.

"What..." she coughed and wiped her watering eyes. "What just happened?"

Then her door blew inward with a loud _crack_, sending a shower of splinters flying inward. Brianna curse and covered her face. Her vision was blurry, everything looking like she was viewing it through a dirty, streaked window. She was vaguely able to pick out three dark figures storming through the door, blaster rifles roaming over the area.

They all wore dark clothes and black facemasks that obscured the lower halves of their faces. The analytical side of Brianna's mind quickly summed them up, even through her wavering vision; one had blond hair, another had black, and the third had hair that was dyed red. Blondie was the tallest and most muscular of the three, hefting a large-bore projectile rifle. Redhead was the shortest, though he was carrying an illegal Voptor Incorporated Overcharger rifle.

_That's not good_, the same logical side of her brain said. _Overchargers are designed to kill slowly. These guys mean serious business._

"On the ground!" Black-hair shouted, gesturing at Brianna with his rifle. "Get on your knees now!"

Brianna winced, the sounds of the man's gravelly voice grating against her already-strained hearing. She flinched slightly as he planted his rifle barrel between her shoulder blades, then did as he said and moved down onto her knees.

"What the _shab_ do you want?" Mack demanded, his hands behind his helmet.

"On the ground," Blondie snapped. He had a surprisingly soft voice for such a large man.

"Not until you tell me what the hell is-"

Blondie's arm lashed out as he rammed his rifle butt into Mack's unguarded throat. The silver-armored Mandalorian let out a surprised gurgle, clutching his throat.

Brianna winced as Mack dropped to the ground, a breathless coking rasp coming out of his helmet vocoder.

"Ooh," Brianna murmured, "you're going to wish you hadn't done that."

Black-hair jammed his rifle barrel into the back of her head and snapped, "Shut up."

Brianna's vision slowly started to clear. She saw Redhead checking the rest of the room, slowly heading toward the couch, behind which Jay was hiding.

_Stay down_, Brianna silently willed the huntress. _Whatever you hear, whatever you think, stay down. You're the one they'll kill._

She breathed a sigh of relief as Redhead leaned behind the sofa, swept the area behind it with his rifle, then moved on. Moments later, Brianna saw a flash of dark hair from behind the overturned food preserver, which was leaning at enough of an angle against the couch to provide decent cover.

"You," Blondie growled, gesturing at Mack, who was still gasping and clutching his throat. "Where's the other woman? Kolta."

"I don't know... any Kolta," Mack gasped.

Blondie slammed his boot into Mack's gut, causing him to double-up in pain. "Liar!" he shouted, racking back the charging rod on his rifle menacingly. "We know she's here."

A low growl sounded over Mack's vocoder and Brianna winced again.

"Yeah," she said to her attacker, "you definitely shouldn't have done that."

"Now," Blondie growled, "tell us where the girl is."

Mack struggled onto his hands and knees, that same low snarl coming over his vocoder, and Blondie pulled his boot back for another kick.

Before he could land his blow, Mack's hands lashed out and caught Blondie by the foot. He wrenched his hands to the side and the man's ankle twisted around with a sickening _snap_. Blondie screamed and fell right as Mack drove his armored fist up into his throat.

Unlike the man's earlier punch, this one was meant to debilitate. The huge man collapsed, writhing as he clutched at his throat. No sound came out of his mouth apart from a pathetic-sounding wheeze.

"Damn it," Black-hair muttered, bringing his rifle to bear on Mack. Brianna leaped into action, grabbing the man by his dark hair and slamming his face into the wall behind him. He staggered, clutching his face as blood poured from his broken nose. Brianna grabbed his neck and slammed him against the wall, pinning him there.

"Who are you?" she demanded. "What do you want with-"

Then she shouted in surprise as she was yanked away. She sprawled onto the floor, crashing into the side of her desk. She looked up to see Mack where she had stood, driving his fist repeatedly into the man's solar plexus. Black-hair gasped for air, blood running down his face. He weakly tried to bat Mack's arm away, but the Mandalorian drove his helmeted head into Black-hair's forehead, knocking him unconscious.

With a shout of rage, Mack tossed Black-hair into the wall and turned just in time to meet Blondie's next attack. The man was limping on one foot, his rifle raised as he prepared to squeeze off a shot.

Mack ducked just as a blinding scarlet bolt flew from the barrel of Blondie's rifle. The bolt exploded into the wall, leaving a large burn scar through one of Brianna's paintings. Mack grabbed the man's arm, wrenching it around, and planted a boot in his back. He shoved forward, sending Blondie staggering into the wall. Redhead heard the commotion, emerging from the fresher and saying, "What the-"

Brianna quickly opened up the drawer of her desk and pulled out a small throwing knife. Grasping it with two fingers by the blade, she rose to her feet and hurled it with all her might.

Redhead shouted in pain as the blade pierced his thigh. He grabbed the handle with a curse and yanked the knife out, throwing it back in the direction where it had come. Brianna ducked, barely able to dodge fast enough. The knife blade sliced along her cheek, leaving a thin gash in her skin before embedding in the wall.

Mack was still laying into Blondie, slamming his head into the wall and knocking paintings from their hangars. Brianna ducked as Blondie attempted to shoot at his attacker. Red blaster bolts flashed around the room and the air was son thick with ion burn.

Redhead, meanwhile, was making his way through the apartment toward Brianna, his eyes blazing with fury. As he passed the couch, and the overturned food preserver leaned against it, Brianna again saw a flash of dark brown hair. The food preserver suddenly fell over onto Redhead's boot, pinning his foot. He shouted and fell, his Overcharger rifle clattering across the floor.

Jay leaped over the preserver and landed on top of Redhead, driving her knees into his shoulder blades. He grunted as he was pinned further to the ground. Jay grabbed him by his hair and slammed his face hard into the floor. When the blow didn't knock him unconscious, she scooped up one of Brianna's pistols lying on the floor next to her, switched the energy setting over to stun, and fired point-blank at Redhead's back.

Blue-white rings of energy exploded from the pistol barrel, enveloping Redhead in a crackling storm of electricity. He jerked and convulsed, his mouth foaming, then fell still with his eyes rolled back in his head.

"Thanks," Brianna called to the other woman, ducking as blaster bolts continued to ricochet around the apartment.

"Let's help Mack!" Jay shouted, but Brianna interrupted her.

"No," she called, wrenching her throwing knife from the wall. "Go into my room and lock the door!"

"What? I'm not going to-"

"They're after you!" Brianna shouted over the clamor. "This will all be pointless if you get yourself shot now! Just do as I say!"

Jay bit her lip, obviously struggling with the decision. Then to Brianna's relief, she nodded and tossed her the pistol. Brianna caught it as Jay sprinted for the door to her room, ducking as red blaster bolts shot over her head. The door slammed shut behind her and didn't open again.

"Mack!" Brianna shouted, turning to her friend. "Let's take this fight outside!"

If the silver-armored Mando heard her, he made no notice. He had Blondie pinned up against the wall and was slamming his fist across the man's face over and over again. Blondie was long since unconscious, but the Mandalorian was in a frenzy.

Black-hair was groggily beginning to come to, and he reached out and grabbed Redhead's fallen Overcharger rifle. He staggered to his feet, racking back the charging rod.

Brianna moved quickly, barreling into him and carrying them both through the door and into the hall beyond. Black-hair was thrown into the wall, his head hitting the surface hard. His eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled to the floor again.

Brianna slowly got to her feet, her muscles screaming in protest. As she straightened, she saw two other dark-clothed figures standing guard outside her door. They activated glowing vibroswords and stepped toward her with dark laughs.

"Mack," she called through her door. She raised her pistol and her throwing knife and said, "I need some help out here."

The sounds of struggle from inside her apartment continued as the two other men sprinted toward her.

She ducked the first slash of a man with gray hair, somersaulting between the two and coming to her feet with both weapons raised. She fired off two stun shots at Gray-hair as she backpedaled furiously toward the stairs.

_We want them alive_, she thought. _Take them alive and they'll be able to tell us what they want with Jay._

Gray-hair's companion, a bald man, spun his glowing blue vibrosword in blinding arcs around his body as he advanced. Brianna caught the glowing blade on the edge of her throwing knife — which looked miniscule in comparison — and jerked the man's sword arm away. The vibroblade buried itself a half-meter deep into the wall next to her and Baldie struggled to yank it free.

Gray-hair advanced, sword held high in a trained fighting position. Brianna flipped her knife around so the blade was facing her wrist and dropped into a familiar combat-ready crouch. They circled each other for a moment before Brianna darted forward, slashing quickly with her tiny blade. Gray-hair grunted as two tiny red gashes appeared on his forearms.

She hopped back, firing at his feet with her pistol. The blue-white stun bolt exploded, sending chips of floor flying up into his face. He cursed and covered his head, charging through the cloud of debris and slashing with his sword.

She struggled to turn the heavy blade away, then cried out in pain and surprise as he backhanded her across the face. She staggered away from the sheer force of the blow, then lost her footing on the uneven floor. She grunted as she fell hard onto her back, her pistol flying from her grip and bouncing down the stairs.

Gray-hair stepped forward, a triumphant look in his eyes as he raised his sword blade. Baldie, meanwhile, had finally succeeded in wrenching his sword from the wall and stepped up to Gray-hair's shoulder.

In a last-ditch attempt to buy herself time, Brianna threw her knife at Baldie. The blade sunk into his shoulder and he screamed and fell back. Gray-hair, however, just came closer and closer, now well within sword reach.

Brianna closed her eyes and thought, _I'm sorry, Cin. I'm sorry you're going to have to come back to a dead girlfriend._

Then she heard a loud explosion of cracking wood and her eyes flew open to see Mack ripping himself through the wall of her apartment. He barreled through the thin wall, using the weight of his _beskar'gam_ as a kind of wrecking ball. He slammed into Gray-hair's side and sent them both flying into the railing over the stairs. The wooden railing shuddered and gave way, and both combatants tumbled over the edge and out of sight.

* * *

Mia knew something was wrong the moment Brianna's apartment building came into sight; there was a speeder ambulance outside, and two white-armored Mandalorian medics were racing for the door. She frowned and picked up the pace.

That a team of medics was camped outside Brianna's apartment wasn't a mere coincidence. Something had happened while she'd been gone.

She pushed through the doors and saw that the small atrium of the building was a mess. Wood chips littered the floor, crunching under the medic's boots as they crowded around a silver-armored figure sprawled facedown on the floor. Dark red blood pooled on the duracrete floor around him.

"Mack?" she gasped. If one of them had died when she hadn't been here to help them…

She caught one of the medics by the arm and said, "What happened here?"

"Sorry ma'am," the man said, his voice crackling through his white helmet's vocoder. "We need to get this man to a medcenter now."

The other medic, a woman, gingerly rolled Mack over. Mia grimaced as she saw a bloodstained foot-long splinter of wood protruding from his side. He groaned and muttered something that Mia couldn't hear.

The female medic passed a handheld scanner over the wound, then said, "He needs minor surgery to get the splinter out from between his ribs, but he'll be fine."

"Thank _te manda_," came Brianna's voice from the stairwell. Mia turned to see the woman sitting on the stairs, a sealed pack of frozen vegetables pressed gingerly to a newly forming black eye. Her lip was cut, she had a thin gash on her cheek, and her clothes were torn and dirty, but she looked otherwise fine. A nervous-looking Jay stood on the step behind her, staring at Mack as he was loaded onto a stretcher and carried out to the ambulance.

"I'm going to go see how he's doing," she said. She silently slipped past Brianna and jogged after the medics.

Mia watched her disappear through the front door, then turned back to Brianna and snapped, "What happened?"

Brianna winced as she pressed the frozen pack against her bruised eye. "We were ambushed. I don't know how."

"By who?"

She shook her head. "All five of them wore masks, so we couldn't identify them. And after Mack fell, they disappeared."

"Disappeared," Mia echoed skeptically.

"Yes," Brianna said, scowling and looking at her with her good eye. The other was covered by the vegetable pack. "They bugged out, taking their wounded with them. By the time I got down to the first floor to see what happened to Mack, they were gone."

"You said you weren't followed. You said this place was _safe_."

"I thought it was!" Brianna snapped. "Look, everything's fine-"

"Everything's _not_ fine," Mia said. "Look what happened to Mack!"

"The medics say he'll pull through," Brianna said, "and I believe them. Mia, I have no kriffing idea how these guys found us. I triple-checked every five minutes that we weren't followed when we came over here. And only Cin and a few others around Keldabe know I live here in the _first_ place."

"Apparently one of them sold you out."

She shook her head. "Not possible. Everyone who knows about this place is up in the mountains at the mining outpost."

Mia scowled, thinking hard. "Well... what about-"

"I'm going to take Jay to the last safe place we have left," Brianna interrupted, standing. "If these guys manage to follow us here, then we'll have to fight them there. In the meantime, I need to head up to my apartment and see what I can salvage from that mess."

"I want you to check in with me every ten minutes via comm calls," Mia said, handing her a comm unit. "No exceptions. I don't care if you spontaneously catch on fire, I want to hear from you."

"Okay," the younger woman agreed. "Any leads on who these guys are?"

Mia nodded and quickly filled Brianna in on everything she and Denton had discovered in the past hours: the kill-cross, the Torch-Bomb Gang, and the hitmen that were currently sheltering in Keldabe.

Brianna frowned. "That doesn't make sense, though. There were five attackers, and only two hitmen in Keldabe?"

"Aramis said those two were the only ones he's seen," Mia said. "The others were probably laying low so as not to draw suspicion to themselves."

"Apparently not any more." Brianna shook her head and chuckled darkly. "You'd probably be able to follow their trail right to their hideout."

Mia frowned at her. "What?"

Brianna indicated the floor. There was a dark blood trail leading out the door. "I managed to wound one of 'em in the leg. He went limping out the door."

Mia frowned at the blood trail, then jogged out to the speeder ambulance and knocked on the door. The white-armored woman opened the door and said, "What? We're just about to take your buddy to the medcenter."

"Your scanner," Mia said. "How much do you want for it?"

"What?"

"I may be able to track down the people who did this," she gestured to the wreckage of Brianna's apartment building, "but I need your scanner. What do you want for it?"

The woman glanced at the other medic, then said, "A... hundred credits?"

Mia pulled out her datapad and quickly transferred one hundred credits to the medcenter's account. "Done," she said, holding out her hand. "I need that thing now."

The woman stared at Mia for a moment, then shrugged and said, "Whatever you say. _K'oyacyi, burc'ya_."

"_K'oyacyi_," Mia replied, ignoring the tone in the woman's voice that made the word _friend_ sound a little insincere. She took the scanner and stepped away as the speeder ambulance flashed its sirens and roared off in the direction of the medcenter on the other side of Keldabe.

"Well," Jay sighed, folding her arms and staring after the ambulance, "we're certainly keeping the medics busy tonight. First that pilot and the Mandalorian, now Mack."

"The docs said he'd be okay," Mia reassured her, only half-listening as she calibrated the scanner. "And the important thing is that they didn't get to you."

The younger woman looked at the ground and shook her head. "Brianna told me to hide in her room until it was all over. And I _listened_ to her. If I'd been there to help, Mack would have never been hurt."

Mia looked up at Jay and said, "If you'd been there to help, you would have died. These guys are professional hitmen. You would have just been a target Mack and Brianna had to defend all the harder."

"Thanks," Jay sighed sarcastically. "That makes me feel a lot better."

"I'm not trying to put you down," Mia said, stepping back towards the building, "I'm just telling the truth."

"Yeah... what are you doing?"

"Brianna said that she wounded one of your hitmen during the fight," Mia explained, tapping commands into the scanner's interface. "There's a small blood trail leading out the door."

"You're planning to scan for traces of blood?" Jay asked.

She shook her head. "No. But do you feel how cold it is out here?"

The other woman nodded and pulled her new gray jacket tighter around herself.

"With the blood trail giving me a rough estimate," Mia murmured, "I can calibrate this scanner to look for resident heat signatures left by the hitmen's boots as he left. If the scanner is powerful enough, I'll be able to track him all the way back to his hideout."

"You can do that?"

Mia nodded, charging up the scanner. "Amazing what modern technology can do, huh?"

"What do you need from me?" Jay asked.

"I need descriptions of all your attackers, as detailed as you can get. If we're lucky, we'll catch one of them alive and interrogate him. We may be able to get you out of this yet."

Over the next five minutes, Mia scanned the entire area just inside the door, trying to confirm five bodies. She could only find three different sets of footprints, but a further examination of the upper floor revealed that another hitman had escaped through the second-floor window, dragging his unconscious companion with him.

Jay provided all the details she could about the attackers, though she admitted that all she could really see was their hair. There was a blonde one, a black-haired one, two with red and gray hair, and one with no hair at all. Mia filed away all this information as she worked. Before long, the entire building was swept and she had a definite lead as to one of the hitmen. If Jay's report about the fight was correct, the bald attacker was her target.

As she was saying her last farewells to Brianna and Jay, warning them to be extra careful now that Mack was out of the fight, her comm buzzed. She was just walking out the door when she activated it and said, "Omotao. State your business."

"It's Denton," came the Mandalorian's voice. "I'm at the first target's apartment. Where are you?"

"Brianna and Jay had another run-in with our notorious gang members."

There was a pause, then he said, "Are they okay?"

"Brianna's a little beat up but they're otherwise fine," Mia said. "I'm tracking down one of the attackers now."

"I'll sit on Kamka," Denton said. "He hasn't left his room yet. Comm me when you're close. If you lose him, head out to Vassicus' hidout."

"Will do," Mia said, then deactivated the comm. Then she held the scanner up, narrowing her eyes in triumph as it showed glowing footsteps on the street below.

_Well, _shabuir_, _she thought, _you can run but you can't hide._

* * *

Brianna stood in the center of her ruined apartment, looking around at the once-beautiful arrangement of paintings that covered the walls. Now, the majority of them were twisted and ripped or blasted through and smoking.

Jay took a step into the apartment, watching as the huntress knelt and brushed a pile of wood chips off of a burnt and warped piece of canvas. As she turned the painting over in her hands Jay saw it was the heart-shaped painting of Brianna and Vhetin.

Any beauty that had been in the painting was gone now. The picture had a three-inch hole blasted through the center and its edges were burned black. The paint had melted away, forming a messy bubbling sludge that had oozed down the front of the canvas, leaving little more than a brownish-black smear across the front.

Brianna sighed and tossed the painting away, straightening. It suddenly looked as if a great weight had fallen on the huntress's shoulders and something had died in her dark eyes.

"I... I'm sorry," Jay said, knowing the words couldn't undo what had happened, nor would they ease Brianna's pain. "I shouldn't have brought this mess into your home."

Brianna let out a quiet laugh, though there was little humor in the sound. "They're just paintings. I can always paint more."

"I didn't want any of this to hurt you," Jay insisted, "or Mack. It's all just a huge... a huge kark-up."

There was some amusement in Brianna's laugh now. "Now that I can agree with."

She turned to Jay, rubbing her tired eyes, and said, "We have to move out. Look through the preserver and see what food and water you can find and pack it up. I'm going to change into my hunting gear and I'll meet you outside."

"Where are we going?" Jay said as she stepped toward the overturned preserver. "You said we had one secure place left."

Brianna nodded as she began pulling pieces of her gear off the mannequin, which was toppled over in the corner. She gathered up her kit and stepped toward her room.

"We do," she said as she closed the door behind her. "Vhetin's bastion."

"Vhetin's what? What is-"

But Brianna interrupted her as her door swung shut. "Get your stuff together, Jay. I have a feeling those assassins will be back before long."

* * *

Mia wasn't surprised when she found that the blood trail she was following lead straight for Vassicus' hideout above the nerf-packing plant. The sun was beginning to rise over the city when the building finally came into sight.

The sign hung in front of the building promised the 'Best Nerf Steaks in Keldabe,' but Mia thought otherwise. The plant was a squat, grayish-black building made of rough-hewn permacrete and it looked filthier than a Hutt's backside. There was graffiti painted onto the walls, most of it vulgar anti-Imperial messages.

She also saw that there were two stormtrooper guards standing post outside the front entrance. She wasn't surprised; since arriving on Mandalore at the beginning of the Clone Wars, the Empire had quickly made a habit of sticking their thumbs into every legitimate Mando business planet-wide. Suddenly air control towers had Imperial overseers, MandalMotors had monthly Imperial inspections, and even Aramis had to beat Imps away from the _Oyu'baat_ to keep them from seizing control the tapcaf and turning it into a local cantina for off-duty stormtroopers. It wasn't an uncommon sight these days to see stormtroopers hanging around virtually every corner of the city.

To combat the swift decline of public privacy and freedom to travel through the city as they wished, many _Mando'ade_ had adopted offensive strategies, ranging from passive aggressive attitudes toward the Imperials to all-out brawls when an Imp Officer looked sideways at them.

Mia, however, had long since known how to deal with bureaucrats like the Imperials. Everything was procedure and paperwork with them, and that was a weakness easily exploited.

As she approached the two stormtroopers, she pulled her pilot's license out of her pocket. If she played this right, she should meet little resistance here.

"Halt," one of the troopers said as she approached. "State your business here."

"Perine Betorski," Mia said, flashing her license just fast enough to look as if she were an important official in a hurry to get somewhere. "Imperial Intelligence Officer, S.I.B."

"S.I.B.?" One of the troopers echoed.

"Special Investigations Branch," she replied, making the division up on the spot. "I'm here on official business from Director Armand Isard himself."

The two troopers glanced at each other, nervousness evident between them even though they were wearing full-face helmets.

"Uh... what can we do for you sir, uh, ma'am?" the taller trooper asked.

She bit back a triumphant grin and gestured to the building. "Anyone come in or out of this building in the last eight hours, trooper? I'm tracking a narcotics dealer who may have passed through here not long ago."

He shrugged, his white armor creaking slightly as he did. "No one but the regulars, ma'am."

"Hm." She pretended to ponder over this, then said, "I'm going to need to take a look inside."

The troopers glanced between each other again and the shorter one said, "Ma'am, the sergeant told us to deny access to anyone who isn't authorized."

"Oh?" she said, raising an eyebrow. She adjusted her jacket with feigned self-importance and said, "Well, a single call to Director Isard will change that-"

"No!" the trooper almost shouted. He cleared his throat and said in a quieter tone, "Um, no, ma'am. That won't be necessary. Just don't... don't steal anything, please?"

"I wouldn't dream of it," she said, stepping past them. "Have a good night, fellas."

She heard the two troopers bickering with each other about 'bloody spooks' and how they were always nosing into other people's business. She found it rather hypocritical since they were standing guard over a processing plant that wasn't theirs on a planet that wasn't technically part of the Empire to begin with. But she had more important things to worry about, and she kept her focus as she cautiously walked through racks of skinned, butchered nerfs.

Reactivating the scanner, she saw that the heat trail from the wounded assassin continued through the plant and up the stairs to the second floor. As she followed the trail, she pulled her comlink and dialed in a calling code.

Denton picked up on the second dialing tone. "Officer Dral here."

"This is Mia. I'm at Vassicus' hideout. Are you ready for your part?"

"I have been for the last half-hour," he said. "Kamka hasn't left his apartment. Heat signatures show he's sleeping."

"Tell me when you're in position," Mia whispered, stepping carefully up the stairs and trying to keep as quiet as possible. She deactivated the scanner and tucked it into her jacket pocket, drawing her small field pistol from its holster on her belt.

There was a slight pause, then he said, "Okay. I'm outside the door."

"Me too," Mia whispered, pressing her back to the wall next to a rotted wooden door. "Waiting for your word."

"In three... two... one!"

Mia let out a long breath and slammed her shoulder into the door, knocking the rotted door off its hinges. It fell to the floor with a loud clatter as Mia stormed into the room, shouting "Emiiwa Vassicus! Get on your knees, you're under arrest!"

She was met with no surprised shout, no explosion of blaster fire, no sound at all. She swept her pistol over the area, breathing hard, and saw nothing but a dirty, empty apartment. There was a messy cot in one corner and a desk with only three legs along the other wall. There were two dirty, stained windows looking out over the street below. Dirty grayish moonlight streamed into the room, throwing dark shadows up onto the wall. There was no one in sight.

She slowly made her way toward a door near the end of the cot — a refresher if she didn't know better — and noticed that the door was partially open. She slowly pushed it open, making sure to keep out of the line of vision of a potential ambusher.

Once again, there was only silence. She took a short step into the room, then almost slipped in something on the floor.

"What the-" she muttered, throwing her hand out and grabbing the doorhandle to avoid pitching forward into the floor. What was that? Had Vassicus left the water running or something?

She reached over and switched on the overhead light. As soon as the bright light sprang to life, her blood ran cold.

There was a body sprawled on the floor of the fresher. A dark puddle of blood was spread across the floor, and that was what she had slipped in. She stared at the body, particularly at the large blaster hole burrowed through his back, and cursed.

Her first thought when she saw the body was, _This must be one of the assassins that Brianna wounded. Maybe he keeled over from blood loss._

But it wasn't one of the human assassins that had attacked Brianna's apartment. The man had dark blue skin and lifeless scarlet eyes.

It was Vassicus.

Mia knelt, careful not to stain the knees of her pants in the dark pool of blood. She stared at the wound in his back, trying to determine what kind of weapon had caused it.

_It's definitely what killed him,_ she thought, nudging the ragged edges of the hole with her barrel of her pistol, _but I can't see exactly what weapon it was. It almost looks like an Overcharger rifle blast._

She frowned thoughtfully, sitting back on her haunches. _Didn't Brianna say one of the assassins was using an Overcharger?_

She pulled the scanner out of her pocket and reactivated it again. She saw that there were heat signatures from footprints all over the place, broken up slightly by the warmth of Vassicus' blood. There was a single set of tracks leading outside.

Mia followed the tracks back out into the room, where they disappeared back out the door and slowly faded away. The trail — and the footprints — was literally cold, lacking enough heat for the scanners to pick up.

"Damn it," she muttered, then activated her comm and contacted Denton.

She'd barely begun to speak before he said, "Mia. What the hell is going on?"

"What?"

"Kamka!" he snapped. "He's dead! That's why he wasn't moving for the past hour and a half."

"Same with Vassicus," she muttered, glancing into the fresher again. "Jay's would-be assassins must have gotten to them before we could get here."

"But these guys are members of the Torch-Bomb Gang. Why would they want to kill their own members?"

"I don't know," she said. "But I do know one thing."

"What?"

"You're going to want to change the paperwork for this investigation," Mia said. "This is now officially a double-homicide."

* * *

**Airspace over the Kelita Forest**

"You still back there, Jay?"

Jay hit the transmission button and said, "I'm here. But I still don't have a clue where we're going."

"I told you, we're going to Cin's bastion."

"That's what I'm wondering about. What is a bastion?"

"A traditional Mandalorian home," Brianna explained. "A _vheh'yaim. _I'll explain when we get closer."

The ugly boxy shape of Brianna's ship, _Blood Lily_, swooped low over the treetops, heading higher up into the mountains that flanked the Kelita River Valley. The sun was rising over the mountains, shedding light on the misty forest below them. Dark clouds floated overhead, threatening heavy rain.

Jay grasped the flight yoke as she guided her fighter after _Blood Lily_, making sure not to fall too far behind. She still wondered why they had left Keldabe in favor of this mystery hideout in the mountains. Maybe this was where the _beskar _deposit — and the mining outpost staffed by hundreds of heavily armed Mandalorians — was situated. Jay would feel much safer in the midst of an army of mercenaries than out on her own against these mysterious assassins that were undoubtedly still hunting for her.

Jay and Brianna had received word just as they'd taken off that Mack had pulled through his surgery and was resting comfortably. Apparently he'd tried to walk out of the medcenter almost the moment he'd woken up and the med-techs had been forced to sedate him.

Thinking of him, Jay frowned thoughtfully and hit the comm button again.

"Hey," she said, "I have another question. About Mack."

"Oh?" Brianna said. "What about?"

Jay followed as _Blood Lily_ swerved to the port side, heading to the northwest. "When those assassins attacked us, Mack just... I don't know, went crazy. What happened to him?"

Brianna chuckled quietly. "Yeah, I guess I forgot to tell you about that. Mack is part of a small group of Mandalorians who are trained in berserker tactics."

"Berserker what?"

"They're trained to go completely crazy in battle," she said. "They kill everything in sight. And the more you hurt them, the angrier they get."

"Mandos actually teach that?" Jay asked. "Isn't that a little..."

"Barbaric?"

"I was actually going to say _archaic_."

"I guess it can be seen that way to most people. But you saw how well it worked for Mack."

"Yeah," Jay said, "he got himself stabbed with a foot-long splinter of wood."

"He almost single-handedly saved your life," Brianna pointed out. "You should be more thankful."

"I'm not saying I'm not thankful. I'm just thinking there's got to be better combat tactics than that."

"Don't bet on it. In battle, sometimes what you need to do is just go psycho like Mack did. I personally don't think it should be your only form of combat training, but lots of Mandos use it to great effect. Even Cin."

"What? Since when does Vhetin go crazy in battle?"

"Have you ever seen him get hit in the hands?"

Jay hesitated. "No."

Brianna laughed again. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure you don't want to. When he gets smacked hard in the hands with something, it's like it flips a switch in his brain. He goes _insane_."

"But that I can understand," Jay said. "Getting hit in the hands with something hurts."

"There are different ways of using it to your advantage," Brianna said, "but most Mandos who use berserker tactics are either completely insane or have some kind of bottled-up internal rage that they need to let loose. When they get the chance, it all just comes out in a flood."

"Which kind is Vhetin?"

There was a long pause from Brianna's end of the comm, then she sighed, "That's a very good question."

They flew for another half an hour in silence, heading deeper and deeper into the mountains. The sun was completely up by the time Brianna's comm line sputtered to life and the huntress said, "Okay. We're almost there. Follow close on my tail and I'll guide you down."

Jay followed as close as she could without over-exposing the front of her ship to engine wash from the _Blood Lily. _The boxy ship nosed down into the forest, disappearing beneath the tree line. Jay swiveled _Vengeance_ around and touched down behind Brianna's ship.

As she popped the cockpit canopy, she saw that the clearing was small enough not to be noticed from the air, but more than large enough to park at least three ships. There was a large, rough-surfaced rock rising out of the tall grass.

Brianna strode down the exit ramp from her ship, hauling a supply pack over her shoulder. Before leaving her apartment, she had changed into her hunting gear, comprised of a heavy leather jerkin – cut at the arms and neck for increased mobility – and a pair of rough black work pants. She also had a dull plastoid neck guard strapped to her right shoulder and a quiver of arrows slung across her back. Her pistols were holstered on her belt and she'd brought along her full compliment of throwing knives. She was carrying her compound bow set in one hand.

"We're a little exposed," she said, frowning at the clearing, "but it shouldn't be too much of a problem. I'll get down here a little later and see if I can camouflage the ships."

"So..." Jay looked around the clearing. "Where are we heading?"

"Vhetin's bastion is hidden about a mile away. It's a fifteen-minute hike through the woods to get there."

She gestured for Jay to follow her and said, "Just one warning: keep an eye out for Kalo Wolves. This is their territory, and if they have cubs they'll attack you."

"Kalo Wolves?"

"They're a distant relative of Strills," she explained. "Mandalorians tried once to domesticate them to use 'em as hunting dogs, but they're too wild."

"Right," Jay said nervously, resting a hand on the pistol Brianna had loaned her. "I'll keep an eye out then."

She suddenly flinched as a loud crack of thunder rumbled overhead. Brianna glanced up into the cloudy sky, squinting as lightning flashed in the distance.

"We'd better hurry," she murmured. "There's a storm coming."

She gestured for Jay to follow, and together they set off into the woods.

They walked in silence for a long time. Brianna led her over small streams and through secluded copses of trees. The air was cool and crisp in Jay's lungs and came out as small puffs of breath on the air. She looked around the area, marveling as birds flitted back and forth through the air and calling softly to each other in the distance.

The world seemed incredibly tense in the forest, as if the simple sound of a tree branch cracking would shatter the world. It made Jay's heart pound; she could feel the closeness of the air in every pore of her body. It was unlike anything she'd ever experienced before.

"This place is amazing," she murmured, turning her gaze to follow two adolescent shriek-hawks as they hopped from tree branch to tree branch, pecking at each other. They saw the two women and stopped their game, cocking their heads and watching them intently as they passed.

Brianna glanced back at her, then let out a soft laugh. "I'm glad you're able to marvel at nature after all that's happened."

"It almost reminds me of a park on Corulag I visited with-" she faltered, then fell silent. She was about to say _with Sade_. But she suddenly couldn't bear to say his name. The crushing weight of the past fell on her again and her vision swam with sudden tears.

"With a friend," she finished quietly. "A long time ago."

Brianna glanced at her again, a sympathetic look in her eyes, then turned silently back to the forest ahead.

"I remember," she said, "when Cin first scoped out a location for his house. He took me up here for the most romantic weekend. We camped out, had a bonfire... it was just the two of us, like the rest of the world didn't exist.

"It snowed when we were out here, the first snowfall of the season, but the tree canopy kept it all from falling to the ground. As soon as you stepped into a clearing there was almost a foot of snow, but if you entered the forest again..."

She shook her head. "It was all just untouched. Perfect."

Like Jay, she trailed off, falling into thoughtful silence. Jay waited a few moments, then said, "What happened?"

The other woman sighed and said, "He... he asked me if, once the Bralor Clan finished building the bastion, I would consider living with him."

"I take it you said no."

"I said no," she echoed. "It was too soon after we started dating. It was only about ten months and I wasn't ready for that big a step in our relationship."

She sighed and said, "If I knew Cin was going to become more and more distant with me, I would have accepted his offer in a heartbeat."

She looked like she was about to say more, but she suddenly said, "Oh. Look, here we are."

Jay looked around and saw nothing but a small hill in front of them, surrounded by a rough circle of stones. There was a tree growing right out of the side of the hill, its branches twisted and gnarled.

She frowned and said, "Um... what are we looking at?"

Brianna gestured to the hill in front of them, spreading her arms. "This. Cin's bastion."

"This is Vhetin's house?"

She nodded. "Doesn't look like much, does it?"

Jay let out a short laugh. "Your scruffy apartment looked more inviting. Don't tell me Vhetin lives underground."

Brianna half-turned to her and grinned. "In a manner of speaking."

Then she strode forward, hefting her supply pack more securely onto her shoulder, and suddenly disappeared into the ground.

Jay blinked and stared disbelievingly at the place where the other woman had vanished. Then, to her astonishment, Brianna's head reappeared, poking out of the forest floor and saying, "Well? What are you waiting for?"

Jay took a step forward and saw that there was a small tunnel leading into the ground. At the end of the tunnel was a reinforced durasteel door with a keypad with glowing red keys. Brianna was tapping a security code into the pad. As Jay stepped closer, the durasteel door let out a loud _clank_ and receded sideways into the wall of the tunnel. It revealed a dark hallway leading deeper underground. Jay could see nothing but darkness within.

Brianna let out a sigh of relief. "Welcome to the _vheh'yaim, _the traditional Mandalorian house. Built to maximize stealth and camouflage as well as designed as a fall-back fortress for bounty hunters in trouble."

"Like me."

Brianna nudged her arm. "Like _us_. Those thugs shot up my apartment too. Like it or not, we're in this together now."

"Right. Sorry."

Brianna stepped forward into the darkness and Jay hesitated before following her. As soon as she crossed the threshold, the door behind her slammed shut with a resounding _boom_.

She found herself immersed in total darkness. Like the forest outside, the slightly stale air seemed very tense. She found herself feeling slightly claustrophobic until Brianna said, "Ah, here we are."

There was a quiet _click_ and overhead lights flickered on. Jay found herself standing in a short entrance hall that looked like the interior of any other house. The walls were smooth and beige-colored and the floor was carpeted under her feet. The hall lead out to a spacious circular room with several halls branching off deeper into the bastion. She slowly stepped into it, looking up and the curved dome ceiling above.

_This must be the center of the bastion_, she thought, _the... what to the Mandos call it? The _karyai_?_

Brianna tossed her supply pack on an old gray couch in the center room and threw herself down onto it with a familiar ease that suggested that she'd visited the bastion many times before.

Jay followed at a more sedate pace, looking around at the room and the halls that undoubtedly led to other rooms in the house. She saw that despite the surprising welcoming layout of the house, there was a fine layer of dust on virtually every surface; the table, the holoscreen, even the couch.

Brianna noticed her curious gaze and said, "Yeah, as you can see, Vhetin doesn't spend much time here. It's technically his 'house' and his fallback position if he ever gets into trouble, but he prefers to camp out in _Void_."

Jay wasn't surprised. Vhetin's starship transport, a mid-sized stealth ship, offered more than enough room to live in. Jay had even slept in the crew's quarters herself on several occasions while out hunting contracts with her partner.

"Go ahead," Brianna said, gesturing to the house with a vague sweep of her hand. "Explore a bit. We're safe up here."

Jay glanced at her uncertainly as the bounty huntress brushed the dust off the couch and settled back, resting her hands behind her head. Then her curious side began to gnaw at her, and she took a closer look at the center room.

The _karyai_ seemed to be the most-used room in the entire house, and even that was fairly Spartan; the only furniture was the old couch along one curved wall, a table in the center of the floor, and a mid-sized holoscreen set mounted on the curved wall opposite.

Further perusal revealed that the bastion was built with two sets of circular halls, all built around the center _karyai_. It looked as if there was enough room to house at least twenty Mandos, but most of the house was deserted and empty.

Still, it seemed that Vhetin had found a use for some of the rooms. As she pushed open one door marked with a sign that read _Training Room_, she found a large sparring chamber, the walls covered with pale gray padding. There were a variety of sparring weapons set up along one wall — Jay found several swords, melee staffs, and boxing gloves in a crate near the door — and there was a padded sparring dummy set up in the center of the room. Its wooden arms and head were marked and scarred with hundreds of pockmarks from countless sparring sessions in the past. Vhetin had obviously spent a lot of time training here.

A little down the hall was another room set up as a shooting range. There was a stack of paper targets arranged neatly on a bench stretching across the room, as well as a number of holographic targets that could move and run around the range for a greater challenge.

"Did Vhetin build all of this?" she asked as she continued her explorations.

"Vhetin?" Brianna laughed. "He's no architect. No, he hired the Bralor Clan to build it."

"He obviously thought he needed a lot of room," Jay observed.

"He actually complained at first that it was too big for even _two _people to live in, but Rav Bralor replied that she builds only one kind of _vhe'yaim_ and she's way too old to try other designs now."

Jay laughed. "Why doesn't that surprise me?"

She hesitated. "If this Bralor Clan built the place, that means a lot of people know where the bastion is. Are you sure we're safe here?"

"Not as many as you would think. The Bralors are one of the most respected Clans on the entire planet. Only three of 'em helped build the bastion and Vhetin made them swear never to reveal the bastion's location."

"That doesn't put me at ease."

"It should," Brianna said. "A Mandalorian's word is her bond. To break a promise of that magnitude is punishable by exile."

"Mandos still exile people?" Jay couldn't say that she was surprised. "Again, that's a little archaic."

"It's a ceremony. The _dar'vode_. It's one of the greatest public punishments a Mandalorian can receive."

"_Dar'vode,_" Jay echoed slowly. "That means 'no longer a brother'."

"No longer _Mandalorian_," Brianna corrected. "It's pretty severe."

"That I can believe." Jay couldn't even imagine the shame that came with being stripped of identity, especially to Mandalorians like Vhetin who took their adopted culture so very seriously. Many Mandalorian converts adopted the culture because of their rough past, because these small clans of mercenaries and bounty hunters offered a fresh start to anyone who asked for it. To be rejected by such a forgiving culture would be the height of humiliation.

She wondered what kind of crime a Mandalorian would have to commit to bring such a punishment down on his head.

The muffled sound of thunder rumbled from outside and Jay glanced up as she heard the first quiet patters of rain against the wood and thatched grass roof above.

"Storm's finally here," Brianna observed. "Even if all of Keldabe knew the location of this place, those assassins aren't going to be flying up here any time soon."

Jay nodded, finally convinced that she was able relax. She was safe here, hidden away up in the mountains.

At least for the moment.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Rough History

**The next morning**

Jay opened the door from the guest room, looking up and down the long hallway before making her way toward the _karyai, _where she heard Brianna's quiet voice. She stepped into the circular center room just as the bounty huntress was deactivating her comlink.

"Mia?" Jay guessed, rubbing her eyes wearily.

Brianna nodded, adjusting her heavy durasteel neck guard and settling back on the couch. She had refused to change out of her hunting kit since arriving at the bastion, in the name of combat-readiness.

"I was fifteen minutes late for the morning report," she sighed. "So naturally Mia thought we were both dead."

Jay chuckled quietly as she leaned against the gently curving wall. "What did you tell her?"

"Just a run-down of the situation; everything's quiet, the storm is still moving in, and we're both still in one piece. She seemed too busy to get caught up in every little detail."

"And how are you doing?" Jay asked. "I'm sorry your apartment was trashed."

Brianna shrugged and Jay was surprised to see less of the misery in her gaze compared to the black despair she'd seen when they had stood in the huntress' ruined apartment. "It was home to me," she said, "but the truth was that it was a cesspit. And if Cin has taught me anything about Mandalorians or bounty hunters, it's that we need to be adaptable."

She shrugged, then turned her dark gaze on Jay and said, "What about you? Feeling better?"

She nodded. "It's amazing what a couple hours of sleep can do for an overstressed psyche."

Brianna sighed and brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. "So tell me more about Sade."

Jay shook her head. "I'm not exactly up to it right now."

"Come on. It'll pass the time until your next near-death experience."

"You really think those assassins are going to be able to track us up here?"

"I think they've managed to pull of some weird stuff so far," the huntress said, shrugging. "Like tracking us to my apartment when only a select few in the city know I live there. It'll help if you can take your mind off thinking about stuff like that, and you'll be that much calmer when they try to kill you again."

"I'm not sure 'ignorance is bliss' applies to this situation."

"But I _am _sure you need to loosen up. Mandalorian combat techniques teach that a soldier who is tense all the time is going to lose their edge in battle. If they always feel like someone is out to get them, they won't see the signs when someone _is_ actually trying to get them."

"Paranoia is a soldier's greatest enemy," Jay whispered. "Sade told me that once."

Brianna nodded in satisfaction. "See? There you go. You're loosening up all ready. So tell me about this Sade guy; where did you two meet?"

Jay sighed and rubbed her eyes. "During my first orientation meeting with Phantom Squadron. He was the one who introduced me to the other pilots."

"And you were just a rookie back then?"

Jay nodded. "I had just finished basic training the week before. I was all set to deploy."

"So what happened?"

Jay stared at the floor, losing herself in the memory as she obediently relayed the story to the huntress.

_She had been only eighteen years old, fresh from the academy. She'd been wearing her uniform grays, neatly ironed and pressed so the cloth's creases were as sharp as razor blades._

_She had been stationed onboard the Imperial Star Destroyer _Triumphant _for a little less than a week. She was alone, untrained, and scared out of her wits. She'd been told that within the month she'd be participating in live-fire battles against insurgent Imperial subjects, and she had been seriously regretting her decision to join the Navy in the first place._

_After all, she wasn't a _soldier. _She was just a simple city girl – more or less – from a more backwater area of Corellia. And she had all but volunteered to go out and risk getting blown to space-bits… for what? A sense of duty to the Empire? A need to please her family? She hadn't had a clue._

_She'd been sitting alone at a duraplast table in the mess hall, staring at the plate of Imperial-regulation rations in front of her. Her stomach had climbed into her throat at the prospect of meeting her fellow pilots and she hadn't had the stomach for the bland, grayish-looking food._

"_Hey there," a voice had suddenly said. She had jumped slightly and looked up as a man in a disheveled pilot's uniform had slid into the seat next to her. He had long light-brown hair and dark green eyes that sparkled with amusement. The sleeves of his rumpled uniform jacket were rolled up to his elbows, revealing angular black tattoos on his arms that curved across the backs of his hands. In all, he was certainly attractive, but she'd nevertheless sighed and prepared to brush off another brainless man who had an eye for her body._

"_You look lost," he'd said. "Do you need help?"_

"_I don't need help from the likes of-" she paused as she saw the red-blue double bars on his uniform chest, accompanied by the battalion number 603. _

_This man was her commanding officer._

_Her blood had run cold and she'd instantly straightened in her seat. She snapped off a crisp salute and said, "No, sir, captain. I'm not lost, sir."_

"_You're new here, aren't you?" he had asked, narrowing his eyes. His lips had twitched up in the first hints of a smile._

"_Yes, sir."_

"_Okay," he sighed in mock-exasperation, "you obviously have some things to learn. Firstly, I'm not to be referred to as 'captain'."_

"_But Imperial regulations state-"_

"_We pilots observe a rather lax regulatory system," he'd said. Then he'd smiled and held out a hand. "My name is Sade Nesson. I'll be your commanding officer."_

"_Lieutenant Jayshiea Kolta," Jay had said, not relaxing her salute. "Reporting for duty."_

"_When did you get out of the academy, Jayshiea?" he had asked, raising an eyebrow._

"_Five standard days ago, Captain Nesson."_

_He'd laughed, an open, cheerful sound that Jay had found hard not to like. "Rookie, you can call me Sade. Everyone else does, even the fighter techs."_

"_Yes sir, Captain… uh, Sade." She had hesitated, then said, "You can call me Jay."_

_He'd smiled at her again and said, "Jay. I like that. It's a lot easier name than 'Jayshiea'."_

"_I thought so, too," she had admitted sheepishly._

_He stared at her for a moment, then clapped his hands and said, "Well, Jay, what would you say if I offered to introduce you to the troops?"_

_She'd stared at him for a moment, then said, "I'd like that… Sade."_

_He'd grinned and beckoned for her to follow. He had led her out of the mess hall and into the twisting hallways outside, toward the barracks. He'd explained some of the details of Jay's new position as he went; little more than what she'd already been told, but her training forced her to pay close attention as he spoke._

"_I can imagine that being the rookie tossed into the middle of a cohesive group is a pretty intimidating task, especially if you haven't had any live combat experience," he had said. "But I promise that I'll try to make the transition as painless as possible."_

_He'd keyed open the door to a gathering room for the barracks section and gestured for her to step inside. The small room had four occupants, three men and a woman, who had all looked up at the sound of the door hissing open. Sade had tossed the group a lazy salute as he stepped inside behind Jay, which they had all half-heartedly returned._

"_Guys," he had said, "say hello to our newest recruit. Phantom Squadron, this is Lieutenant Jay Kolta. She's going to be our new wingwoman."_

_The group had nodded and given her friendly greetings as Sade proceeded to introduce them one by one._

"_This is Captain Turina," he'd said, indicating the short red-haired woman leaning up against a supply crate. The woman had nodded, her green eyes seeming to blaze with intensity that Jay had never seen before._

"_They call me Red Dwarf," she said. Jay had easly been able to see why; the woman's short stature and bright red hair almost made the nickname inevitable. "I look forward to flying with you."_

"_Same to you, ma'am… uh, I mean Turina."_

_Sade had clapped her on the shoulder and said, "There you go. Now you're getting the hang of this."_

_Next she'd been introduced to Kalin, a young man with a friendly, grinning face and messy black hair. He held out his hand and said, "My call sign's Dewback. Don't ask me why, 'cause I have no idea. Some schutta started calling me that and the name stuck."_

_Jay had laughed and shaken his hand. "It's good to meet you."_

"_And this monolith," Sade said, nudging a dark-skinned man with short black hair and dark brown eyes, "is Oppan. We call him 'O' because he has zero social skills."_

_Oppan had said nothing, simply staring at her and sniffing noncommittally._

_Finally, she had been introduced to Fillton, who – unlike the rest of Phantom Squadron – was obsessed with Imperial procedure. He had even scolded Jay for not addressing him as 'captain' when she first spoke to him._

"_Ah, don't worry about Yessir," Kalin had said, slinging an arm around the man's shoulders. "He's just trying to get promoted so he can get out of this outfit. He'll do anything to catch his superior's eye."_

_Yessir had shrugged the young man off and straightened his uniform self-consciously. "Yes, well… all that aside, regulations are clear."_

"_Go space yourself, Yessir," Sade had laughed, settling down on a seat near a transparisteel window that looked out into the blackness of space._

_Jay had stood off to one side for most of the following hours, listening to the friendly banter of her fellow pilots. She had been pretty sure at that moment that she would be all right. She would be flying with good people that she could trust. It would take some getting used to, but she'd be able to live with it._

_Maybe in time, she'd even be in charge of it all._

Jay shook her head and finished, "I never was in charge of Phantom Squadron, but after about a year of flying with them, I'd been promoted to Captain."

Brianna let out a low whistle. "Impressive. How'd you manage to pull off so many promotions in so little time?"

Jay shrugged. "I was one of the best pilots in the entire 603rd. I helped bring Phantom Squadron to the top of the simulator scoreboards and helped lead the group through over fifty combat missions over the next two years. It only took us about six months to gain a reputation as one of the best fighter squadrons in our outfit."

Brianna chuckled softly. "You're more talented in the cockpit than I gave you credit for, then. So when did you and Sade hook up?"

Jay took a deep breath and continued her tale.

_Jay had flown with Phantom Squadron for only six months before the routine inspections rolled around. All the pilots of the _Triumphant _would be under supervision from a visiting Imperial Admiral. Needless to say, the pilots were all nervous as hell and sweating razor blades._

_"Okay guys," Sade had said in the first briefing of the day. He'd stepped into the room and clapped his hands and said, "So you've heard the popular rumors."_

_"Is it true we got saddled with Admiral Utapass?"_

_"Hard-Ass Utapass?" Red Dwarf clarified._

_"I'm... yeah," Sade had sighed. "Yeah. Okay. We've got Utapass as our supervisor."_

_Jay had stepped up next to Sade, as she had been assigned as his second-in-command about two months before, and said, "Utapass is just another superior that we need to smooth talk so we don't all get court-martialed."_

_Sade had nodded. "She's right. So for this week I want all you guys brushing up on regulations. Keep your quarters tidy, your uniforms neat, and I especially want you all to log at least seven hours in the simulators this week."_

_Kalin had sighed explosively and said, "Come on, boss. Seven hours?"_

_"You should be logging ten," Jay had pointed out. "We're just hoping that Phantom Squad will be small enough to escape Hard-Ass' notice in that regard."_

_The rest of the pilots had grudgingly nodded and agreed. Sade had looked through of them for a moment, then said, "Also, you guys know that the _Triumphant _is holding a competition for the best squad. Every kill we rack up in the scrimmage supervised by Utapass this afternoon will go on a scoreboard. At the end of the scrimmage, the _Triumphant's _captain is going to tally up the scores and one squad will get the glory of being the best group in the 603rd."_

_"Come on, boss," Kalin had sighed. "We haven't won that award in..."_

_He frowned, turned to Oppan, and asked, "How long has Phantom Squad been together?"_

_"Three and a half years," the man had grunted._

_"Three and a half years," Dewback had finished, turning back to Sade. "What makes you think we can get it now?"_

_"In one word?" Sade had said. He'd stepped behind Jay and put a hand on either of her shoulders. "Her."_

_Jay had glanced at him in confusion, blushing deeply. He'd grinned at her and said, "Since Jay joined the squad our numbers have spiked almost twenty points. She's going to keep you on your feet during this week. If you're having trouble, go to her and she'll help you out."_

_"Isn't that your job?" she had asked him. _

_Phantom Squadron, Sade included, had laughed. "I'll be here too," Sade said, clapping her shoulders and stepping around into full view again. "Let's just try to stay out of trouble and we should be fine. Agreed?"_

_Phantom Squadron had agreed and they'd slowly dispersed to their separate daily tasks. After a few moments, only Jay and Sade had remained._

_She had sighed. "I wish you hadn't done that."_

_"Done what?"_

_"Put all this on me. Now it's my responsibility to pull Phantom through this inspection."_

_"You'll do fine," Sade had said. "I have faith in you."_

_"I've only been in this unit for six months," she had said. "I know you posted me as your second-in-command, but I don't have enough popularity with the pilots to pull of any real leadership tactics in battle. They won't listen to me."_

_"Hey," he'd said. "Listen to me. You're the best pilot I know and in general the best _person _I know. If Phantom will listen to anyone, it'll be you."_

_"But that's not true," she had said. "What happens when I give them an order and they blow it off and cost us the award?"_

_"Okay," he'd said, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder, "tell you what. I'll watch your back for the week. If I think you're having trouble, I'll step in and help out. But just this once, okay?"_

_She had nodded, feeling slightly comforted, and said, "Okay. I'll give it a try."_

_"No," he'd corrected, "you're going to succeed. If you say 'I'm going to try' you leave it open for failure. So go into this knowing that you're going to make it and you'll do fine."_

_"I hope you're right," she'd said, then followed him as he left the room._

Brianna stared at her and said, "So... what? That was it? Just _boom_ and you two were together after that?"

"No," Jay said, "it was after the week was over. It was... one hell of a week. Hard-Ass Utapass certainly lived up to his name. He wrote up everyone he could and kept an eye out for every minor infraction someone could manage to pull off. Thankfully, Sade and I managed to keep everyone under control and under Hard-Ass' radar for the week."

"Then what?"

She sighed and said, "Then there was the first scrimmage match. And that was when everything went to pieces."

* * *

**Keldabe Law Enforcement Headquarters, earlier that morning**

"Okay," Denton sighed. "We've been working at this for almost five hours and we're no closer to finding out where these guys came from."

"Even the most stealthy assassin leaves a trail," Mia muttered for what felt like the hundredth time. "So far we've been able to track this Torch-Bomb gang all the way back to the month where they first got here in Keldabe."

"And that's where everything goes dark."

"All we need to find out," Mia said, picking up a sheaf of flimsi and quickly reading through it, "is which spaceport they used to get to Keldabe. After that it's all easy. We can track where they came from and from there we can find known associates"

The list of Vassicus' recorded credit transactions, which stretched back for several months, quickly proved to be of little use. She set the flimsi aside and sighed. "If we just keep plugging away at it-"

"I don't know about you," Denton interrupted, "but I'm not exactly the paper-pushing Treasury Officer type. I prefer to get out and talk to people."

"And how do you propose we try that?" Mia inquired. "The spaceport in Keldabe is huge. Hundreds of visitors come and go every day. We're trying to pick out two."

"Simple," he replied. "We go down there and start interviewing people."

"Interview people about a man they may or may not have seen more than half a year ago?" Mia inquired, raising an eyebrow. "I'm sure that'll look good on the paperwork."

"Kark the paperwork," Denton sighed. "Here in the enforcement office we have a saying: _Mando'ade kebbur vaii aruetiise shebs'sheber._"

"Mandalorians try where others sit on their asses," Mia translated quietly. "I guess that's a good point. But it doesn't make our situation any easier."

"No," he admitted, "but at least it gives us somewhere to start."

She nodded, grabbing her jacket from the chair behind her and standing. Denton also rose from his seat, strapping on his pistol holster.

"Don't Imperial spaceports store their security cam footage for three years before the Imps are allowed to purge their archives?"

"Last time I checked. But as a good, old-fashioned _Mando'ad_, I'm not exactly up to scratch on Imperial space transport regulations."

It was a ten-minute speeder ride to the spaceport. The building was officially called the Keldabe Interstellar Spaceport, but local Mandalorians coined it with the affectionate name "_Dini'la'yaim_" or _Crazy House_. The spaceport was notorious for being perpetually crowded with spacers as mercenaries or bounty hunters went to and from the planet on their deadly business. And when the supercommando militia army was deployed… Mia didn't even want to think about it.

Thankfully, the entire building was now almost deserted thanks to the mining post in the mountains. The only people who were traveling back and forth from Keldabe were almost all foreigners. The empty hallways - polished to a pristine slate-gray color as per new Imperial regulations - looked dirty to Mia as she and Denton wound their way through the maze of docking bay gates and reception areas to the main security office.

Denton strolled up to the front reception desk and presented his enforcement I.D to the Nikto male working there. The alien looked up from the sheets of flimsi spread across the desk.

"I called you earlier," Denton explained at the Nikto's questioning gaze. "We're here to look through your security files."

"Port Guard's already cleared it with the Imp authorities," the Nikto grunted in his native language. He jerked his head toward a door behind the desk and said, "Head on through."

They soon after met the Port Guard, the head security officer for the spaceport. He was a short, balding man of fifty. He was Mandalorian, with clan tattoos over his smooth head and muscular arms. His most distinguishing feature – and probably the reason he wasn't up with the other Mandalorians in the mountains – was a prosthetic mechanical leg that protruded from his left pant leg. The prosthetic was simple, little more than a tangle of wires and support plating, and he limped along in front of them as he showed them the way to the inner sanctum of the security station. The room was dark and lit by the glow of more than thirty holomonitors.

The Port Guard explained that the security cams showed overlapping areas of the building. Nothing within the starport escaped its view.

"And you store all the video feeds for three years?" Denton inquired.

The Port Guard nodded and explained that the files were stored on a locked-down database in the third sub-basement.

"Only I have the access codes to bring the files up here," the Port Guard growled. "Which I assume is the reason I've been called up here on my day off to deal with you."

"We appreciate your time," Denton quickly said, "and we'd be more than happy to pay you for-"

"Keep your creds," the man grunted. "Just tell me what it is you're tryin' to find."

"A group of assassins," Mia said. "They're trying to kill a friend of mine."

"An _aruetii_?"

Mia narrowed her eyes. "Does it matter?"

"M_andokarla_?"

"Without a doubt."

The Port Guard seemed to debate with himself for a moment, then nodded and said, "All right. I'll help you. Just give me a minute to pull up the right files."

Denton nodded and pulled up a seat near the central monitor as the Port Guard set himself to work. Mia watched them for a moment, then turned away and pulled her comlink from her pocket.

After three dialing tones, Brianna's voice, thick with sleep, came over the other line. "What? What's the problem?"

"You're fifteen minutes late for your report."

"Am I? I'm sorry. I've been kind of tied up with all the _osik_ that's been going on. I don't know about you, but repeated assassination attempts aren't my idea of a peaceful kriffing weekend."

"Watch your language. Is there anything to report?"

"All quiet here," Brianna muttered. "Storm's coming, but apart from that…"

"Are you watching the forest?" Mia asked. "Do you have defenses set up?"

"I watched up on the roof of the bastion for a while," Brianna said, "but it was a lost cause. The lightning from the storm is going to screw with everybody's short-range instruments. No assassin is going to try and fly up here and it's a four-day hike on foot."

Mia nodded, satisfied that the two women were safe at least for now. Brianna's claim made sense; any assassins would wait until the storm passed to try anything. The young woman was a bounty hunter after all, and knew the mind of killers.

"How's Jay holding up?" she asked.

"Better than I initially expected. She explored the bastion a bit, then I offered her the guest room. She's been sleeping ever since."

"And you sure you weren't followed up to the bastion?"

"I made sure when we were flying up here that there was no one nearby," Brianna reassured her, "and I triple-checked once we landed to make sure there were no tracking devices on the hulls. We're safe."

"Okay. I'm at the local starport in Keldabe trying to see where these fierfeks came from. I should be here for the next few hours. If _anything _looks out of place-"

"I'll call you," Brianna finished. "This isn't my first run around the Battle Circle, you know."

"Okay," Mia sighed. "Then I'll leave you to it. Keep an eye on Jay."

"Right now I'm keeping two on her. What do you think Cin would do to me if he came home and his partner was dead? He'd flay me alive."

Mia closed her eyes and let out a long breath as she deactivated the comlink and tucked it back into her pocket. Then she turned back to Denton and the Port Guard, resigning herself to many more hours of long, boring work.

They worked without pause for the next three hours. Using information provided by Aramis, who joined them in the second hour through Mia's comlink, they managed to narrow down the Torch-Bomb Gang's arrival time to a single week eight months ago. But even with that narrow time window, there was still a _lot_ of security footage to comb through, and the KIS was a busy spaceport. Several times, they had to look over a single second of footage for almost a quarter of an hour, studying every face in the multitude of beings. Mia and Denton must have burned through almost ten cups of caf as the hours wore on, desperately trying to keep fatigue from numbing their senses.

"Wait," Denton said halfway through the second hour, "go back a bit. Is that Vassicus?"

"No," Mia sighed. "Just a Duro. Keep looking."

"Damn it," Denton muttered, taking a long swig of caf. "Blue skin, red eyes... so close to a Chiss, but still so far."

"We'll find them," she said, squinting at her holoscreen. Her eyes ached from focusing so hard, but she wasn't about to give up now. Not when there was a chance that the assassins who had killed Vassicus and Kamka were still out there and still tracking Jay.

"Aramis," Mia said over the comm, "your contact who saw these Torch-Bomb Gang members... did they see anyone else with them?"

"Not to my knowledge," the _Oyu'baat _bartender said. "I'll check with my guy again, but I'm not sure how much help he'll be."

"We just need to learn who they had contact with over the last eight months. If they are assassins that list should be pretty short."

"Also," Denton chipped in, "call up a Mando by the name of Retro Tarscin. He's a friend of mine. Tell him to run all the comm calls to the two numbers I'm going to transmit to you."

"Standin' by," Aramis growled.

The enforcement officer quickly typed Vassicus' and Kamka's comm numbers into his handheld datapad and transmitted the files to Aramis at the _Oyu'baat_. Once done, he said, "Tarscin should be able to hack the Imperial databases and find plenty of dirt on those two pretty quick. Add it to what you can find, and we should have a pretty big list."

"I'll see what I can dig up," Aramis said, then signed off his end of the transmission.

"He shouldn't take too long," Denton said. "The man's like a hunting strill when it comes to information."

"So…" Mia paused, thinking hard. "Why do you think these other guys killed Vassicus and Kamka?"

Denton shrugged, still staring at the holoscreen in front of him. "I dunno. Maybe they crossed some local gang. Messing with Mando thugs is a bad idea on any day."

"I followed one of the men who attacked Jay and Brianna to Vassicus' apartment. Vassicus was dead, so it's a good bet that whoever attacked Jay decided to take him out as well. Why would someone do that to an ally?"

"Why do criminals do anything they do?" Denton shrugged. "Although it does raise the question of just how many assassins Jay has on her tail."

"That's my point," Mia said, gesturing to the holoscreens around them. "We're combing through days of security footage at a snail's pace. But how many of these guys have we already missed?"

"If we find Vassicus and Kamka, we'll be able to track down the rest of them. We just need to find their trail. Keldabe's a pretty empty place right now, so finding a couple _aruetii_ assassins should be easy."

He relaxed in his seat. "Like I said, let's sit tight and wait for Aramis to get back with his finds, then we'll move on to tracking these schuttas down."

As if on cue, Mia's comlink buzzed. She grabbed it and said, "Omotao. Is that you Aramis?"

"Aye," came the bartender's gravelly voice.

"That didn't take you long."

"Most everyone is out of town and my buddies aren't doing much other than sitting around their _vheh'yaim_s. They jumped at the opportunity to do something. You want to hear what I found out or not?"

"Go ahead, _vod_."

"Okay," Aramis sighed, "my buddy said that he saw your Chiss talking with a human about two weeks ago. He wasn't able to remember much about the human, but the guy shouldn't be too hard to find."

"And why is that?"

"My buddy said he was completely bald, and missing an ear. Some old war wound, I assume."

Mia glanced at Denton. "Brianna and Jay didn't mention a guy with a missing ear."

"Interesting," the Mandalorian murmured, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Maybe the ringleader?"

"Apparently the two were having some kind of argument. Don't know about what. It might be worth looking into, if you don't mind me saying."

"What about his comm records?"

"Well," Aramis let out a long breath, "Kamka apparently doesn't have a comm unit. Not surprising, considering the fact that he's an assassin. Guys like him prefer to travel off the radar, so I assumed from the start that he was gonna be a dead-end."

"What about Vassicus? He's a scout for the gang, so he should have been contacting quite a few people."

"He was. Almost too many to even begin to investigate, from all over the galaxy. But he was in almost constant contact with a guy here in Keldabe, a human named Cax."

"Got a full name?" Denton said, sliding his chair over to an open holomonitor. He began to type furiously into the keyboard and information windows began flashing across the screen.

"Not at first, but Cax isn't your average name. So I checked through the Keldabe transmitter database to see whose codes would fit with the one Vassicus was contacting. The name I found was Cax Contorius."

"Cax Contorius," Denton echoed. "Interesting…"

Mia glanced at him. "What exactly are you doing?"

"If this guy is the ringleader of a group of assassins here in Keldabe, chances are that Cax is not his real name. But thankfully, most criminals don't have time to get creative with their cover identity. And the most popular way to make up a cover I.D…"

He clapped his hands and gestured to the screen with a triumphant cry of "_Oya_!"

Mia swung her chair over to look over his shoulder. It looked like he'd pulled up a security registration window.

New Imperial regulations stated that all spacers had to register their name, transport number, and destination when they landed. It was now part of the security protocols that all travelers had to obey. He pointed out a single name in the list.

"Xac Suirotnoc?" she read. "That's 'Cax Contorious' backwards."

He nodded and began typing again. "Now, this database isn't plugged into Imperial Records, so I won't be able to scan for any criminal history, but…"

More info windows flashed by the screen until he pulled up a passenger manifest for a civilian transport that had moved through Keldabe just over eight months ago. More important, it looked like there was another Suirotnoc on the flight.

"A brother or father?" Mia asked.

"Hard to say," Denton said, continuing to type. "Once I run these names through the Imp Records database we should have more info, but…"

His voice suddenly trailed off, and he narrowed his eyes. He began typing twice as fast and he muttered, "What the…"

"What?" she whispered. "What is it?"

"This can't be right," he said, shaking his head. "This says that the transport that these two Suirotnocs arrived in Keldabe from _Timer_."

"Timer?"

"It's a frontier agricultural outpost," Denton explained, "on _Concordia_."

He glanced at her, frowning in confusion.

"These assassins who are trying to kill Jay," he said, "they're _Mandalorian_."

* * *

**Vhetin's bastion, Kelita Wilderness**

Brianna stared at Jay, then cocked her head and said, "So what happened during the scrimmage?"

"We didn't lose, if that's what you think," Jay said.

"I never said that. But you said everything went to pieces."

"I… I should have been paying better attention. Thinking, instead of rushing into things like an idiot."

"Do you mean your relationship with Sade?"

She sighed and nodded. "Yes. I mean my relationship with Sade."

_Jay had walked through the door to the prep room, pulling on her heavy flight gloves. Her pilot's helmet – a black, up-armored variation of a typical stormtrooper's headgear – was tucked under her shoulder and her hair was pulled back in a long braid that could be easily tucked up inside the helmet._

"_So this is it, huh?" Oppan had growled to Turina as he had laced up his boot. "The big scrimmage match. TIE fighter against TIE fighter."_

"_It's just another drill," Red Dwarf had replied as she had calibrated the oxygen scrubbers on her flight suit's chest-mounted control panel. "Just another drill to pass the time until our next deployment."_

"_With an attitude like that, we're sure to win," the dark-skinned man had muttered, standing straight and straightening his ribbed black flight suit. "The victory may well be in our pocket right now."_

"_Calm down guys," she had said. "Red Dwarf is right; this is just another drill. But O's also right that just because this is a drill doesn't mean we don't have to give our best."_

"_The lady speaks the truth," Sade had said, stepping into the prep room. "I want all of you flying your best out there today, got it?"_

_There had been a half-hearted chorus of affirmations. Sade had looked around at the assembled pilots and suddenly mimicked Hard-Ass Utapass' gravelly monotone. _

"_By the eight moons of Tarporia Five," he snarled, "I must have been struck deaf. I said _got it_?"_

_All the pilots of Phantom Squad, Jay included, had snapped to attention and cried, "Sir, yes sir!"_

_Then they had all broken down, laughing and clapping each other on the back. Sade had looked through them, approval evident in his gaze, and nodded to himself. After a moment he gestured for Jay to follow him to a more private corner of the room, out of earshot of the other pilots._

"_What's up, flyboy?" she had asked him as he'd turned to face her._

"_I just wanted to tell you to be careful out there. Keep our guys in a cohesive unit and make sure they don't slip up. We have a real chance to win the prize this year and I don't want to foul it up."_

"_I'll do my best, sir," she'd said, nodding._

_He had stared at her, then smiled. She couldn't help but miss the nervousness in the gesture._

"_You're the best pilot I've ever had the privilege of flying with," he'd murmured. He had awkwardly put a hand on her shoulder and said, "I want you to be able to prove that to the others. I want you to prove it to Phantom Squad, to Hard-Ass, to the whole karking _Empire_. Can you do that for me?"_

_She had grinned. "That's asking quite a bit flyboy. Do you think an average, everyday girl like me can pull it off?"_

"_I'm being serious. Can you do that?"_

_Her grin had faded as he had squeezed her shoulder insistently. She looked at his hand, then said, "Okay. I won't let you down."_

_He had nodded. "I'm glad to hear it."_

_Then he'd turned to the rest of the pilots and said, "Win this scrimmage, guys, and drinks are on me at the barracks cantina tonight!"_

"_That'll motivate them," Jay had murmured as the squad had cheered and applauded their CO._

"_I'm counting on it," he said. Then he had called to his pilots, "All right, let's head down to the hangar and get prepped."_

_Together they had marched out to the hangar bay, keeping in tight formation as they passed through the halls. Most of the Star Destroyer had been operating with a skeleton crew until it was actually deployed, but they had still passed stormtroopers, Imperial techs, and officers along their way. After several minutes of marching, they had come across another group of pilots. When Jay had seen them, she had narrowed her eyes in wariness._

_Sade had seen them too and had brought his squadron to a halt by raising a fist. He had then rested his hands on his hips as he regarded the woman leading the other pilots._

"_Echo Squadron," he had greeted them, a definite edge of hostility to his voice._

"_Hello Phantom," the woman had said with the hint of a sneer. She and her squad had been prepped for the scrimmage like all the others, but the woman still had her helmet off, revealing her icy blue eyes and short black hair._

_The woman had regarded Phantom Squadron with barely-concealed contempt, resting her hands on her hips. A smirk had tugged at her lips and she'd said, "Where are you guys heading? Hopefully not to the scrimmage?"_

"_We have our orders," Sade had said evenly, his eyes never leaving the woman. Jay had almost been able to feel his hostility toward the woman. "But I'm sure you already know that, Zarra."_

_Zarra had thrown her head back and laughed. "Is that so? I hope for your sake that you're not seriously entertaining the possibility that you'll win. Echo Squadron has been at the top of the boards for three years running now."_

"_You know how much the overseers love an underdog team."_

"_Underdogs are one thing. Losers are a completely different matter."_

_Oppan's face had turned down in a furious scowl and he'd taken a step forward, muttering, "Losers? I'll show you a loser you stuck up-"_

_Sade had put an arm across Oppan's chest and muttered, "Not now, O. Calm down."_

_Zarra had stared at the dark-skinned man, grinning widely, and said, "Well, good luck out there I guess. You're going to need it to avoid becoming the laughingstocks of the _Triumphant. _Let's go Echo Squad."_

_The woman had jerked her head and the six pilots had swaggered past them, heading for their own hangar bay. Sade's head had turned to follow them as they passed, a single clenched fist the only indication of his loathing for the Echoes. Oppan had also stared at them, breathing hard._

_Once the other pilots had turned the corner, Sade had rounded on O and poked him hard in the chest. His face had been turned down in a furious scowl as he'd growled, "Next time you pull a stunt like that I'm putting you on report, O."_

_Oppan had snorted and gestured after Echo. "They're stuck-up schuttas. They should be taught a lesson."_

"_Then teach it behind the joystick of your Interceptor. Physical violence will only get you in trouble. How much flak do you think we would catch if Phantom suddenly got the reputation of a bunch of violent thugs?"_

_He'd shoved O back into his place in the line and said, "Keep your temper in check. Every time you start to get really pissed off, imagine blowing Zarra's Interceptor into oblivion during the scrimmage."_

"_Yeah," Dewback had chuckled, nudging Oppan in the shoulder. "Imagine that there was a… weapons malfunction, shall we say? No one could have possibly known that your Interceptor's cannons were still charged."_

_Jay had simply stood back and watched the exchange, noticing the effect Zarra's confidence had had on Phantom. She'd known Zarra for a long time, had known that she was proud, overconfident, but also ruthless in a TIE Interceptor. It was because of her iron will that Echo Squadron had snatched the scrimmage victories for the past three years. The only apparent weakness in Echo Squadron was that her fellow pilots were mediocre at best; she had been the force that kept their group at the top of the charts._

"_Here's an idea," she'd decided to say as they set off for the hangar again. "Zarra's the top pilot in her squad, right?"_

"_Right."_

"_And she's also the one who gives out the orders, right?"_

_Sade had frowned. "Right. Where are you going with this, Jay?"_

"_We're going to be scrimmaging against her and the other three Interceptor Squads out here. So why doesn't Phantom go after Zarra first? Focus all our firepower to take her out of the game. With her gone, we _are _the best."_

"_That's a sound plan in theory," Turina had observed, "but how will it stand up in battle?"_

_Jay had turned to Sade. "We should only need three pilots to take her down; even a pilot as good as Zarra can't withstand three attackers at once. Interceptors don't even have shields. If I can take two pilots with me, we should be able to take her down. And that'll leave us free to take the prize for ourselves."_

_He had seemed to struggle with the decision, frowning and rubbing his chin thoughtfully. After a moment, he'd murmured, "With Zarra in the field, it's not smart to divide our forces like this."_

"_I know that," Jay had said, "which is why we take her out early. Then we can regroup and mount an offensive against everyone else."_

"_Who do you want to take? I'm not giving you permission, I'm just curious."_

_Jay had looked at the assembled members of Phantom for a time. Finally, she said, "If we can get Yessir to run decoy-"_

"_Whoa," he'd interrupted. "I'm not running decoy for _anybody_."_

"_Come on, Yessir," she had pleaded. "When you're in the cockpit you fly like you learned out of the Navy regulation's book. You're predictable; Zarra will definitely go after you first."_

_He'd scowled at her, then said, "That makes sense… I guess. But if I get shot down…"_

"_Turina," she had continued, "I want you flying as my wingman. You're the best shot I've ever come across, and I think that's what we need in this situation."_

_Red Dwarf had shrugged. "If you think so, cap. I think we're all going to be shot down before we even leave the hangar bay, but…"_

"_Stay positive," Sade had said._

"_Well?" Jay had asked, turning to him. "I've got two willing volunteers and a solid plan. What do you say we give it a try?"_

_He had stared at her for a long time before sighing. "I guess I don't have a choice but to say yes. The worst that can happen is we lose the scrimmage."_

"_Again," Oppan had growled._

_Jay had beamed and said, "I won't let you down, flyboy."_

_Ten minutes later, the six members of Phantom Squad had been fully prepped and settled in the cockpits of their state-of-the-art TIE Interceptors. Jay had adjusted her safety restraints as she had booted up her helmet's HUD, feeling a slight rush of worry._

_For all her earlier confidence, she had been far from convinced that they'd be able to take down Zarra. She was the best pilot in the outfit and had been since joining. She was a prodigy in the cockpit and everyone – including her – knew it._

"_Phantom Two," Sade had said over the private comms designated for squad leaders and their seconds-in-command, "come in, over."_

"_Here," she had replied._

_There was a pause over the comm, then he had said, "Look, if I know you at all – and I do – then you're not as sure about this plan as you looked when explaining it to everyone else."_

"_You… well, I guess you read my mind."_

"_I have a knack for that. I just wanted to tell you that I have faith in you. You're the best pilot I know, and you're hands-down better than Zarra. Just stay focused and don't lose faith in yourself. Okay?"_

_She had laughed slightly. "I'll be fine. Just make sure to keep your part of Phantom safe, and I'll bring mine back in one piece."_

"_Roger that." He had hesitated, then said, "Jay, I… um… good luck out there."_

_She had frowned. It had almost sounded as if that wasn't what he'd been trying to say. She had clicked the comm and said, "Hey… is everything all right with you? We can't afford to have you freezing up out there."_

"_I haven't frozen up since my very first day in the Academy," he'd replied evenly._

"_You sure you're good?"_

"_Positive," he'd said._

_She had frowned deeper, but said, "All right. Good luck to you too."_

"_Copy that, Phantom Two," he'd said, then switched off his comm._

That was weird_, she had thought. _I wonder if he's as worried about this plan as I am.

_Then she had clicked on her open comm and said, "Advisor, come in."_

"_I'm here, Phantom Two," the voice of Switch, Phantom Squadron's tactical advisor, had said. "You wanting flight clearance?"_

"_It would be nice, yes."_

_Switch had been the invaluable seventh member of Phantom. His job had been to analyze the battle data and orders sent to him by the _Triumphant'_s commanders. He had also been tasked with monitoring enemy movement and relaying that information to the squadron so they would know what was happening. He had been an expert with computers and a top-notch multitasker, allowing him to perform his job with skill and ease._

"_I'm assuming someone told you our plan?"_

"_If by 'someone', you mean Captain Nesson," he'd replied, "then yes. And I think you're crazy."_

"_Join the club."_

"_Now don't get me wrong," he'd continued, "I think you're the best pilot to come through this outfit, and you're definitely crazy enough to pull this off. But have you thought this through?"_

"_What do you mean?"_

"_If this plan gets blown to hell and Phantom loses the scrimmage, everyone is going to lay the blame on you. After all, you came up with the plan."_

_She'd sighed as she ran a systems check on her fighter. "I know that. But Zarra has to be taught a lesson and Force knows everybody else's plans don't seem to be working. Maybe we'll get lucky."_

"_I hope so, for your sake," Switch had said. "Just remember to make Phantom proud; Hard-Ass is watching."_

"_Copy that, Switch. Thanks."_

_And with that, she had gunned the ion engine of her fighter and lifted off. Techs had scrambled for cover to avoid the downdraft of her ship as she had slowly guided the Interceptor out into the cold void of space. The shimmering blue shield stretching across the hangar bay doors had shimmered slightly as her ship had passed through it._

"_Okay…" she had sighed. "Phantom Strike, sound off."_

"_Yessir, responding to roll call."_

"_Red Dwarf here, ready to roll."_

"_Good," she had said, guiding her Interceptor toward the two other fighters. The hum of her ship's ion engines had soothed and calmed her. "Let's group up with the rest of the squadron. When the scrimmage starts, don't go for Zarra until I give the word. Got it?"_

"_Copy that, Phoenix."_

_Jay had smiled slightly at the sound of her call sign. Sade had assigned it to her when they had passed their last yearly inspection with flying colors. He'd said that it was all thanks to Jay and her level-headed determination to get Phantom to work as a cohesive unit. Yessir had commented that Phantom – which had been on the verge of being split up and shipped away from the _Triumphant _due to poor battle scores – had been reborn from its own ashes._

_Sade had seized the opportunity and designated her with the call sign 'Phoenix', after an ancient Corellian symbol of royalty and of strength achieved in the heat of battle._

_She had been determined to live up to the name._


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Inferno

Denton threw his hands up with a curse. "Well this is just karking _great_. All this time searching for our 'mystery assassins' and they were hiding right under our noses?"

Mia frowned in worry. "That would explain how they were able to track Jay to Brianna's apartment. They're trained bounty hunters with access to hi-tech equipment."

He shook his head and pushed away from the table, pulling his comlink. She watched him and said, "What are you doing?"

"If we've got _mando'ade_ trying to assassinate _aruetiise_, Shysa needs to know. Thankfully, I've got the ol' _Mand'alor_ on speed-dial."

Mia stared at the screen showing the names of the Suirotnoc brothers. _If these guys are Mandalorians_, she thought, _they're well-trained bounty hunters. And that meant that Jay and Brianna are still in danger, no matter where they are._

"I need to go,' she said suddenly, standing from her chair. "I need to join up with Jay and Brianna. They'll need my help."

"Stay in constant comm contact," Denton reminded her, then he turned away. A moment later he said, "_Su'cuy, Mand'alor_. No, everything is not okay. We've got a problem."

Mia stepped past him, out the door and into the spaceport. She headed for the rental speeders at just under a jog. She knew the spaceport well, and it wasn't long before she found her way to the speeder rental bay. The Mandalorian standing guard over the vehicles said, "You looking to rent a speeder?"

"Which one has the ignition codes installed?" she said as she brushed past him.

"They're installed when you pay the hourly rate for the vehicle-"

She fished in her pockets and tossed a handful of credits at him. He caught them with surprise and stammered, "A-and the insurance-"

More credit chips bounced across the floor and he said, "Okay... um, I'll give you number three, shall I?"

"_Vor'e vod_," she called, swinging into the speeder and gunning the engine. She depressed the flight pedal and the speeder shot up into the air, roaring toward the distant Omotao farm. She triggered the vehicle comm and dialed out to Brianna's comlink.

The huntress picked up after three dialing tones. "Mia? I'm not late for another report, am I?"

"Grab a gun," Mia said, her voice terse. "And keep an eye on the door."

"What? I've told you about this, Mia, we were extra careful on the way up here. No one followed us."

"That might not matter."

"What do you mean?"

"Denton and I found out that the ringleader of these assassins came from Timer."

"_Concordia_?" Brianna sounded incredulous. "What... like they're _aruetiise_?"

"_Mandalorians_. I don't know why they've targeted Jay, but she's in serious danger."

"I'm already halfway out the door. Man, the storm is really coming in strong now."

Mia was able to hear thunder in the background of the crackling comm transmission. It reassured her slightly; the thunder would wreak havoc with scanners and other ship-based instruments, drastically reducing the chances of the assassins finding the bastion in the mountains. It was almost impossible to find already, even for those few who knew its location.

"Sit tight," she said. "I'm going to head to the farm and grab some stuff, then I'll be right up there."

It took her less than five minutes to reach the farm, where she quickly parked the speeder and jumped out, sprinting for the door. She threw open the door and instantly made for the _karyai. _Set along one wall was a set of reinforced double-doors with a keypad mounted next to them. Mia quickly tapped in the code — the date she and Rame had married — and the doors slid into their housing in the wall.

Revealed within were two storage lockers with transparisteel fronts. One of the lockers was empty, as Rame was currently using his suit up at the mining outpost, but the other housed a suit of white _beskar'gam_ with red trim.

_I thought Rame was crazy for trying to get me to buy this tin suit_, she thought as she opened the locker and began unbuckling armor pieces. _Did he know something I didn't?_

It didn't take long for her to armor up; after ten minutes she was heading back out the door with the white-red helmet tucked under her arm. She hopped back into the speeder and took off, heading toward the mountains.

The readouts in the speeder cockpit sputtered and were filled with static, a side effect of the storm that was now raging in the sky high above. Lightning flashed high above, arcing from cloud to cloud as thunder rumbled through the air, almost deafening even through the sound-dampening bulkheads of the speeder.

She tried to activate the comm unit to contact Brianna again but got nothing but static. It was slightly reassuring, knowing that if the assassins were still after Jay, they would be having the same tech trouble she was.

It took her almost fifteen minutes before the small clearing near Vhetin's bastion came into view. From above, the clearing looked empty. But as Mia brought the speeder in lower, she saw that someone had camouflaged two starships with forest-weave.

Forest-weave was a favorite form of Mando camouflage where random twigs, leaves, and bark chips wrapped up into a durable, flexible cover to mimic the patterns of a forest floor. It was _osik_ when viewed at ground level, but good forest-weave made ships, people, even small buildings disappear from above.

Mia brought the speeder down into the clearing, parking it near the treeline. The vehicle was smaller than the ships, and would be hidden well beneath the overarching canopy.

_Kark it all,_ she thought as she left the speeder and clipped her helmet to her belt. _I didn't miss this part of the job at all; the worry, the fear, the rush to stop bad guys who will kill innocents if not brought to justice. I forgot how stressful this is._

She made her way deeper into the forest, through small copses of trees and over a trickling stream. As she drew closer to the bastion's location, large droplets of warm rain began to fall from the sky, dripping down from the tree branches above her. When the small grassy hump of Vhetin's bastion came into view, she stepped up the pace. She ducked down into the subterranean entrance hall and pounded an armored fist against the durasteel door. When there was no response she pounded on it again, harder this time.

The door flew open and she found herself staring down the barrel of a high-powered blaster rifle. She jumped slightly and threw her hands up in surrender.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" she cried. "It's me!"

Brianna stared at her for a moment, then leaned over and looked across her shoulder. Once satisfied that no one was waiting to spring out in ambush, the huntress slowly lowered the rifle and jerked her head. "Come in, quick."

Mia quickly stepped into the bastion's entry hall, watching as the thick durasteel door slammed shut behind her. Once she triple-checked that the door had locked, she turned to Brianna and said, "Nice to see you're taking this so seriously."

"Yeah," Brianna sighed. "Sorry about that. Ever since you told me that these guys were Mandos… suddenly everything seems to be going 'bump' in the night."

"I couldn't afford not to tell you," Mia said, stepping past her. "Where's Jay?"

"In the _karyai,_" Brianna said, pointing further down the hall. "She's actually taking this pretty well. Go ahead and talk to her; I'm going to keep watch on the door."

Then the huntress adjusted her heavy neck guard, shouldered her rifle, and settled her back against the wall. Mia stepped past her and emerged into the circular central room. Jay was sitting on the old couch in the center of the room, turning one of Brianna's pistols over and over again in her hands.

"Hey there," Mia said, looking at her sympathetically. "How're you holding up?"

"I'm okay," she murmured. "How about you? You look like you're expecting an armed siege."

"I am. You've heard the news?"

Jay nodded. "That these guys are Mandos? Yeah. I'm working through the rough draft of my last will and testament now."

"We'll all be okay. Mando or not, you've managed to escape them twice already. That proves that they're not all that smart."

"They're still Mandos. That means they've been trained in combat since they were five years old. It means they're tough, well-equipped, and unpredictable."

"We don't even know if they'll track you up here," Mia pointed out. "I'm optimistic about all this."

"As I can see from your current attire," Jay murmured sarcastically.

Mia sighed and gestured to her armor. "All this is just a precautionary measure. You know that as well as I do."

Jay shook her head and holstered the pistol before letting out a long breath. "I actually kind of hope that they show up just so we can end this. I want to go _home_."

"This will be over soon," Brianna called from the hall. "For better or worse."

"That doesn't make me feel better," Jay called back.

Mia put a comforting hand on her shoulder and said, "I'm going to keep lookout on the bastion roof for a while. If you need to talk…"

Jay nodded. "That, however, does make me feel better. I'll probably head up there in a little bit."

"Good," Mia said. "Keep your wits about you."

"Same to you."

* * *

**Keldabe**

Denton turned the wheel of the speeder, desperately trying to control the vehicle as it flew through the streets. His helmet comm buzzed and he activated it with a blink of his eyes.

"Officer Denton," he said.

"Glad I caught you," Mia's voice said. "You going after the Suirotnoc brothers?"

"One of them. I have no idea where Xac is, but his brother Loren has a pretty extensive criminal record. The enforcement office apparently has his address in the database. It was a simple matter of pulling the file and lookin' it up."

"Don't kill him," she warned.

"Do I look like a _beroya_? I'm just going to interrogate him. He may leave this particular encounter with a few broken fingers or a concussion…"

"I think that's acceptable. Call me when you're done with him."

"Will do," he said, then depressed the accelerator. The speeder shot down the street with a roar, the buildings and halolamp posts flashing past. He activated Suirotnoc's criminal record, setting the speeder computer to read it to him so he could focus on the road.

"_Bounty: Open,"_ the computer said in a smooth female voice. "_Name: Loren Suirotnoc. Species: Human. Sex: Male. Last known location: Timer, Concordia. Bounty Originator: Imperial Law Enforcement Bureau."_

Denton narrowed his eyes and thought, _What would the Imps want with this guy?_

"_Appearance," _the computer continued, "_typical human male. Black hair, brown eyes, and a black Mandalorian mythosaur skull – _kyr'bes – tatto_o on his shoulder."_

"A _kyr'bes_ on his shoulder?" he said out loud. "The guy is a supercommando?"

"_Brief: Wanted for credit laundering and black market fencing for Black Sun. Subject is known to have moved over thirty thousand credits for the organization. Reward: 8,000 (alive)."_

"Not exactly the kind of guy fit for supercommando service," Denton muttered. "But if he is a supercommando, he's definitely got the contacts to put together a strike team."

He narrowed his eyes as he turned down a side alley. "I think it's time he gets a visit from Keldabe Law Enforcement."

It was three minutes before he was standing outside the listed apartment for Loren Suirotnoc. It was in an old, dingy apartment building a few blocks inside the first barrier wall. The halls were dark and dirty and the overhead lights wouldn't work no matter how many times he flipped the activation switch at the end of the hall. The entire place looked like it should be condemned.

He took a deep breath and pulled his gold/black helmet over his head. He booted up his HUD, scanning the room beyond. Sure enough, there was a single life form in the apartment.

"_Oya_," he muttered, then pulled his pistol and planted his boot in the center of the door. The door splintered inward and crashed to the floor and he threw himself into the room shouting, "Keldabe Law Enforcement! Hands on your head now!"

He saw Suirotnoc jump and spin toward him with a cry of surprise and he shouted, "Loren Suirotnoc! Get down!"

The man moved to run towards the room's single window but Denton snapped off a shot at the floor. Wood chips exploded upward in a shower of debris and a cloud of ionized smoke. Loren coughed and waved his hands in front of his face to clear the smoke, still trying to make for the window.

Before he could even get a step closer, Denton stepped through the smoke. He grabbed Loren by the shoulders and slammed him against the wall.

"What the _kriff_?" the man sputtered. "Who the hell are you?"

"Law Enforcement," Denton growled, pinning him against the wall. "Where's your brother?"

"W-what… what do you mean? I'm a karking supercommando, and if you don't get your hands off of me-"

"I don't care if you're Boba Fett himself," Denton snarled, slamming him against the wall. "I can hurt you in ways you can't imagine."

"I've heard that so many times," Loren laughed. "There's nothing you can-"

Denton tightened his grip on Loren's shoulder as tight as he could. Suirotnoc's face tightened in mild pain until Denton wrenched his hand to the side and dislocated his prisoner's shoulder. The wet _pop_ of the bone popping out of its socket was drowned out by Loren's scream.

"Tell me what I want to know!" Denton shouted.

Loren whimpered, his entire tough-guy pretense lost. "I-I swear! I don't know anything, _I don't know a-anything…"_

Denton scowled behind his helmet and said, "Your brother is trying to kill someone and has failed twice already. I have reason to believe he's going to try again. Where is he?"

"I… I don't-"

"_Where is he_?"

Loren shook his head, tears of pain running down his face. He sputtered and cried, "He… he mentioned something about… a woman?"

"What. Did. He. _Say_?"

"Don't… He told me that 'the bitch wouldn't live to see tomorrow.' He said… uh, that they were heading up into the mountains."

"How? How do they know where she is?"

He just moaned, "My arm… I-I can't feel my fingers."

"You won't _have_ any fingers if you don't tell me what I want to know," Denton snapped. "How do they know where Jay is?"

"Xac… he said something about a tracer. The woman has it on her."

"Not possible," Denton said. "She scanned herself and her ship for tracer beacons."

"No," Loren gasped. "It's not a beacon. Not even a tracer chip. It's a special new kind of internal tracker. Microscopic liquid tracers. Once the subject ingests the liquid, it can't be detected except by the custom tracer receiver."

"Fancy stuff for Concordian supercommandos," Denton murmured. "Where did you get it?"

"I don't…"

"_Where_?"

Loren's shoulders slumped. "I don't know. We put in a request with a local security force for a tracer. Said it was part of a special _beroya _job."

"Which security force?"

"They wouldn't give it to us. They said something about an Imperial inspection. They couldn't give out any more kit until the inspection was over."

"Then who gave you the equipment?" Denton asked. When Loren began to stutter again, he put pressure on the man's shoulder and made him squeal like a five-year-old.

"I-I don't know! Xac said… said he was going to go to some friends. Apart from that, I don't know. I swear! I swear!"

He stared at him, then said, "All right. I believe you. One last question: why in the _hell_ are you going after Jay?"

Loren let out a weak chuckle and craned his neck to look out the window. "She… she's an _aruetii_, plain and simple. And Keldabe's being overrun with scum like them. We deserve better than that. We're _warriors_ and they're just idiots."

Denton narrowed his eyes before jerking his hand and popping Loren's shoulder back into place. The man squealed again, tears running down his face.

"Some warrior you are," Denton said before shoving Suirotnoc in front of him and pulling a pair of stun cuffs from his belt. He clapped them across Loren's wrists and said, "Loren Suirotnoc, you're under arrest for attempted murder."

Then he led the man out the ruined door and toward the speeder waiting on the street below. As he went he activated his helmet comm to inform Omotao of his findings. If he was lucky, she would have enough time to prepare accordingly for the assassins.

But before he could dial out Mia's number, a thought occurred to him. He dialed out another number first. The man on the other end picked up the line after the second dialing tone.

"_Den'ika_?" the man said. "What's got you up so early in the mornin'?"

"I'm glad I caught you, Pev," Denton said with a slight smile. "Why aren't you up in the mountains?"

"The wife is up there, but someone has to look over the nerfs while she's gone. Why? You got somethin' going on?"

"Something like that. You up for some enforcement action?"

There was a pause, then the man's voice said, "Always. And if you need it, I can think of a couple other _vode_ who're bored out of their _buy'ces."_

"That," Denton said, "would be absolutely perfect."

* * *

Jay found Mia sitting on the roof of the bastion, a forest-weave cover over her head to block the rain and her comlink hooked into her ear via headset. She was sitting cross-legged with a high-powered rifle resting across her lap.

"Yeah," she was saying into the comm. "I understand. No, that's not a problem. I think we're going to need all the help we can get."

The woman glanced up and saw Jay coming. "Okay," she said into the comm. "No, we're all safe here. I've got to go now, so I'll check in later. Thanks, Denton"

She clicked off the comlink and said, "Hi. Come to talk?"

Jay sighed as she ducked under the cover and sat down next to the white-armored woman. "I'm just tired of sitting alone in there. Brianna's doing another security sweep of the bastion and she's not in the mood to talk."

"That shouldn't be too different from any contract with Vhetin."

She laughed. "I have to admit… I'm actually starting to miss him. He always seems to know what to do in situations like this. If he was here, he would… I don't know, hunt them down and kick their asses."

"I don't think it would be that simple," Mia said. "Even Vhetin can't just go waltzing around kicking people's asses."

Jay shook her hair out of her eyes and said, "You're probably right. So… did Denton manage to find anything?"

"He interrogated one of the Mandos coming after you and he said they're using a prototype liquid tracer chemical that you must have ingested sometime before this mess started. Can you imagine when they could have snuck that into your diet?"

"I don't…" Jay frowned. "Wait. I… I had drinks with Wad'e Rangir yesterday morning at the _Oyu'baat_."

She looked over at Mia and said, "Do you think these guys could have snuck this tracer into my drink?"

"I think it's entirely possible. Um… there's really no tactful way to put this, but have you gone to the fresher any time soon?"

"About an hour ago," Jay sighed, rubbing her eyes. She was suddenly very tired. "So if this chem tracer was still working at the time, they know where we are. How do these chemical trackers work, anyway?"

"I'm not sure," Mia said. "I'm just a farmer, remember? But I know they have something to do with chemical reactions in the skin. The tracer receiver can pick out that chemical and makes you glow like a hololight on their readouts. And since the human body sheds millions of skin cells every day, all they had to do was track your trail as you made your way through the city."

"And how were they able to even get that _osik_ into my drink?"

"Aramis is tracking that down. He thinks one of these assassins infiltrated his kitchen this morning and snuck it into your drink when you ordered."

"That means this whole mess was premeditated," Jay sighed. This was getting better and better all the time. "What do they want with me?"

Mia sighed and shook her head. "The guy Denton interrogated said it was just because you were a foreigner. They have something against you because you're not Mandalorian."

"Why would anyone try and kill someone just because they're different?"

"People are killed because they're different all the time. And not all Mandalorians are as open and kind as Rame or Cin. A lot of Mandos hate _aruetiise_ and blame them for everything that's gone wrong on Mandalore since before the Clone Wars."

She shrugged. "Mandos are a proud race, but also very suspicious of outsiders. I know that doesn't come as a surprise to you."

Jay chuckled slightly. "We were the same in the Navy. Rookies were newcomers to a tight-knit group and weren't respected until they proved themselves."

"And what did you have to do to prove yourself?"

She smiled. "I had to fly through hell. A scrimmage match between all the TIE Interceptor squadrons onboard the _Triumphant_. I was the head of a strike team tasked to take out the _Triumphant_'s best pilot."

"Sounds serious. What happened?"

"Since when did I become the resident storyteller? First Brianna won't leave me alone without spilling out my life story and now you start in on me."

"Okay, okay," Mia said, shaking her head. "Forget it. I was just curious."

Jay suddenly felt bad about snapping at her. "Look, I'm sorry. I'm just worried."

"If you don't want to talk about it-"

"No," Jay said, frowning as she stared at the thatched grass of the bastion roof under her feet. "I hate to admit it, but it actually kind of makes me feel better to talk about it. Just give me a minute to collect my thoughts."

"Take all the time you need."

_Jay had settled back in her Interceptor's flight chair, taking a deep breath of the crisp, filtered air pumped through her flight helmet. Her eyes had darted across the helmet's HUD as well as the holographic readout of her Interceptor as she had activated the comm and said, "Phantom Strike, let's regroup with the rest of the squad."_

_She had pulled her fighter around to head toward the other three Interceptors that had been emerging from the _Triumphant'_s hangar bay._

"_All right, people," Sade had said, "stay focused, keep on your toes, and everyone goes home in one piece."_

"_Easier said than done," O had growled. "And if Zarra beats us in this match I swear I'm gonna send her floating back to the _Triumphant_."_

"_Focus on surviving the match yourself," Turina had said. "We got our places yet, boss?"_

"_Affirmative," Sade had replied. "We're ordered to set up in Quadrant Five. Let's head out, Phantom."_

_Most of the Interceptor squadrons had still been prepping for the scrimmage, so Phantom had had most of the 'field' to themselves. As they had headed for their positions, Sade's voice had come over Phantom's private comms._

"_Let's go over the plan one more time, just to make sure we've got it down. Phantom Three, you're first."_

"_When we get the word to start," Yessir had said, "I take off and make like I'm heading straight for Echo Squad. I don't go for Zarra, though, so she thinks I'm trying to think out her forces. She'll think I'm a big enough threat to go after and will take off after me."_

"_Good," Sade had said. "Dwarf, you're next."_

"_When Yessir confirms that Zarra's on his tail, I swoop in to the starboard flank and open up with full autocannons. I harass her fighter until she tries the obvious escape route of swerving to port-"_

"_Which is where I come in," Jay had said. "When Zarra tries to escape, I fall in to port and pen her in."_

"_While Zarra tries to escape," Yessir had said, "I swing around and close the net behind her."_

"_With three fighters firing at once," Jay had finished, "there's no way she can hold up for long. And once she's out of the running, we regroup with the rest of Phantom and continue our offensive."_

"_Good. Stick to the plan and we'll make it through this."_

_Jay had brought her fighter into position in a larger triangular hawk's-head formation. She had been one fighter down from Sade, who was at the head of the Squadron._

_The comm had sputtered and a familiar arrogant female voice had suddenly said, "Ready to run home with your tails tucked between your legs?"_

"_Keep your nose in your own damn business, Captain," Sade had said. "We've got more of a chance at the prize just because we're going to give it our best. Echo Squad is nothing but a bunch of arrogant fierfeks. You do the math."_

"_We'll see how smug you look when you're the first ones disabled."_

"_Talk as much as you want, but you'll have to prove it when the scrimmage starts."_

"_Then let the best squad wi-"_

_Sade had cut off the rest of the transmission. Oppan had laughed and growled, "That'll piss her off. Good goin' boss."_

_Jay had flexed her grip over the flight joystick as she'd watched other Interceptors gliding out to join the scrimmage groups. The _Triumphant _had been operating below full operational readiness, with six squadrons of TIE Interceptors: Arrowhead, Ash, Banshee, Crystal, Lightning, Echo, and Phantom. But Jay had known as well as everyone else in Phantom that the real contest would be between the Echoes and the Phantoms alone, as they had been the two top squads on the entire ship. If one of the two were eliminated, the prize would almost certainly go to the survivor._

_She had been determined not to lose. Not after they had worked so hard as a squad to get where they were. Not when she had shed so much blood, sweat, and tears to get the pilots working as a team. And not when Sade had been counting on her._

_Her comm had hissed and Switch's voice had come over the internal speakers. "Orders just came through, guys. You launch in five."_

"_Get ready," Sade had said. Jay had narrowed her eyes, watching the last few Interceptors maneuvering into position._

"_Pilots!" Switch had said, adopting the tone of a swoop track announcer. "Start your _engines_!"_

_Phantom had revved the engines of their Interceptors, a squad tradition, reveling in the shriek of the ship's ion engines. Jay had hoped that the sound was shaking up the other pilots, making them more nervous._

_In ten," Switch had said, "nine… eight…"_

"_Remember what I said," Sade had whispered over Jay's private comm. "Believe in yourself and we'll pull ahead of this."_

"_Seven… six…"_

"_I won't lose," Jay had said. "Not this one."_

"_Three… two… one… go, go, go!"_

_Jay had slammed her boot down on the accelerator pedal and her Interceptor had shot forward into the field. She had been dimly aware of the other Phantom Interceptors right by her as she went._

"_Phantom Strike," Jay snapped as blaster bolts began flashing through space. "Form up on me. We're gonna go after Zarra now!"_

_The Interceptors had been modified to fire ion blasts from their quad cannons that would leave enemy ships incapacitated. It wouldn't have been deadly, but it would have taken ships out of the scrimmage._

"_Phantom One," she had transmitted as she saw Red Dwarf and Yessir swooping towards her, "this is Phantom Strike. We're green and heading after the target."_

"_Roger that," Sade had replied. "Good hunting."_

_Jay had pinged her Interceptor's radar, tagging Zarra's Interceptor for attack. The Interceptor had glowed bright green on her ship's HUD. With the other two ships, she had shot off toward Echo Leader, beginning the first part of their plan._

"_Yessir," Jay had transmitted over Phantom's TeamCom, "let's get this show on the road."_

"_Yes ma'am," he'd replied before swooping down and shooting after Echo Three, who was flying as wingman for Zarra. Jay had been pleased to see his Interceptor's bright blue ion bolts stitch a burnt zig-zag pattern across the hull. The ship had spiraled out of control, floating away into space to be picked up by recovery droids after the scrimmage._

_Instead of going after Zarra, however, Yessir had stuck to the plan and flashed in front of Echo Leader's Interceptor. He had flown straight for nearby Echo Five, who had been engaged in a dogfight with Crystal Leader and Arrowhead Four._

_Zarra had taken the bait; she'd torn after Yessir's ship, opening up with the top two quad cannons._

"_Red Dwarf," Jay had said, "you're up."_

_Turina had obediently swooped in as Zarra was chasing after Yessir and had begun firing with all four quad cannons. Zarra's ship had almost seemed to twitch visibly in surprise before she swerved to escape to the port side. _

_Jay had quickly jumped into action. She had depressed the accelerator and shot forward, hemming Zarra in as Yessir had pulled his fighter around and closed up the gap between Jay and Turina. Echo Leader had been successfully trapped, with nowhere to go._

"_All right, guys," Jay had said, "let's take this bitch down."_

_But Zarra had one more trick up her sleeve; she had suddenly brought her Interceptor to a full stop. Yessir had cursed, his Interceptor swerving out of the way so the two ships wouldn't crash into each other. Zarra, having successfully broken their cage, accelerated and soared away._

"_Damn it!" Jay had shouted and brought her fighter around. She had depressed the accelerator pedal as hard as she could and blasted away after Echo Leader. "Red Dwarf, form up on me. Yessir, you okay?"_

"_Fine," he'd replied. He had quickly brought his Interceptor back under control, rolling and dodging ion bolts that had randomly flashed through space around him. "I'm coming around, ma'am."_

"_Get on top of this, Phoenix," Sade had growled. "We can't afford to let her get away."_

"_Already on it, flyboy."_

_Jay and the rest of Phantom Strike had rocketed after their target, firing with all quad lasers. Zarra's ship had jinked and spun with unnatural speed, dodging all their attacks._

"_Fierfek, she's too fast!" Red Dwarf had snapped._

"_We are _not _losing her!" Jay shouted over the comm. "Push your ships harder. I want your accelerator pedals punching through the bulkhead!"_

_Banshee Four and Five had flashed across Jay's field of view. She fired all four quad lasers and took them both out. The ships had spiraled away, powerless, into space as Jay had roared over the disabled Interceptors, barely able to keep up with Zarra's ship._

_Her comm had suddenly sputtered and Zarra's voice had rang through the cockpit, tight with concentration._

"_Nice plan, Phantom Two… you're a bigger threat than I gave you credit for."_

_Jay hadn't responded, desperately trying to score even a single hit on Zarra's fighter. But the woman was an incredible pilot who had seemed to know what Jay was going to do before it happened. Jay had found herself cursing with every cannon bolt that had shot cleanly past Zarra's fighter._

"_It's too bad," Echo Leader had growled, "that all your meticulous planning was for nothing."_

_Jay's concentration had been suddenly shattered. She had triggered her comm and said, "Phantom Strike. You hear that?"_

"_We did, ma'am," Yessir had said. "Sounds like the Echoes are planning something."_

"_What do you think it-"_

_Before Turina had been able to complete her sentence a flurry of blue-white cannon bolts had exploded seemingly out of nowhere and her ship had been disabled. She had spun out of sight with a curse, the cannons of her Interceptor sparking with electricity as she had unsuccessfully attempted to fire._

"_Where the hell-" Yessir had begun before another flurry of cannon bolts had taken him out as well._

"_Son of a-" Jay had muttered as she'd seen Echo Two and Five swooping in on her from behind. The two had opened fire and space around Jay's Interceptor had lit up like bright blue-white strobe lights._

"_Phantom Leader," she'd cried. "I'm under attack! I need immediate assistance!"_

"_We can't get to you," Sade had replied. "We're under fire ourselves. You need to keep in the game for at least another five minutes."_

"_I don't know that I'll be able to last that long," she had shouted, doing a triple barrel roll to try and dodge the incoming fire._

"_So sad," Zarra had said, her voice once more full of arrogance, "that all your work is for nothing. And you showed so much promise. Better comm pretty-boy Sade and tell him you're gonna be on 'fresher duty for the rest of your military career."_

_Jay's blood had boiled, her eyes narrowing as she had focused on the shape of Zarra's fighter, outlined in bright green. She had imagined the look that would be on Phantom's face, on Sade's face, if she came back with nothing to show for their efforts. She had been the one who'd built Phantom up into more than the bottom-most squad, who'd gotten them _respect_. She hadn't been about to let all that slip through her fingers._

"_I made a promise," she had whispered, not caring if her comm was on. "And I intend to keep it."_

_Then she had swung her fighter around, barreling toward the two Echo fighters with cannons blazing. The bolts had hit Echo Two's fighter, sending it flying out of control. In doing so, however, she had opened herself to fire from Echo Five. Blue ion bolts had exploded against the front viewport of her Interceptor and a power-loss alarm had blared through the cockpit. _

_She'd seen that power had been cut from her starboard cannons. She had cursed and fired her two remaining quad lasers. Echo Five had attempted to swerve out of the path of her fire, but it was too late. The Interceptor had crackled with ion burn and sluggishly floated away._

"_How did you…" Zarra had muttered. Then she had swung her fighter around and fired all four quad cannons. Jay had struggled to dodge the blue ion bolts, gritting her teeth as she had swiveled the flight joystick._

"_Damn it," Jay had snapped as the black space outside her cockpit viewport lit up with bright blue explosions. "Phantom Leader, the rest of Phantom Strike is down. I need immediate assistance or I'm not going to make out of this."_

"_I'm sorry," he had said. "We just can't get over there!"_

"_Flyboy, I can't do this on my own. Zarra's all over my ass and I can't get her away."_

"_You'll have to."_

"_I can't-"_

"_Jay!" he had snapped. "Remember what I said earlier. You can get through this. Now suck it up and blast that Echo bitch out of space."_

_Jay had cursed as his comm had gone silent, leaving her in silence save for the muted explosions of ion bolts outside. Then she'd grasped the flight stick and pulled a full 360-degree turnaround. She had pulled the cannon trigger, firing from the two remaining quad cannons. The stacatto _snap _of the cannons had been audible even through the bulkheads of her Interceptor._

_Zarra had zoomed straight down, dodging all the bolts with a simple maneuver. Jay, knowing she had pushed Zarra onto the defensive, had pushed the Interceptor's ion engines to a hundred-and-fifty-percent output. The whine of the engine quickly grew to a scream and she had been able to feel the acceleration in the pit of her stomach._

"_Switch," she had growled, teeth clenched, as Zarra had suddenly zoomed in an upward diagonal spin, "patch my comm over to the Echo TeamCom."_

"_You trying for some psychological warfare?"_

"_Just do it."_

"_Give me five-"_

"_Switch!" she had snapped. "Now!"_

"_On it," he had obediently said. _

_Moments later her comm sputtered and Zarra's voice had said, "Any Echoes left on the field, sound off!"_

_Another voice had replied, "Echo Four here. Where are you?"_

"_I'm transmitting coordinates. Get down here and get Phantom Two off my back."_

_Jay had smiled in slight satisfaction, glad to have been causing Zarra such discomfort. She had doubled her efforts to shoot Echo Leader down, firing her two remaining cannons as fast as the Interceptor's ion accelerators could handle. A single bolt grazed the starboard energy collector mounted on the wing of Zarra's Interceptor. The ship had begun to spin wildly and Jay had been able to hear Echo Leader's cursing as she had struggled to bring her ship under control._

_Then something unexpected happened; Zarra had begun to speak over Jay's comm._

"_I know you're listening," Echo Leader had said. "You're too good a pilot not to be. Now, listen to me: let me go and I'll make sure Echo calls off their hits on Phantom until the end of the scrimmage. I'm begging you to just give us a break, give us time to regroup."_

"_Why in the _hell _would I do that?" Jay had replied. "You took out two Phantom Interceptors."_

"_You took out most of mine, too. I think we're square by now."_

"_That's not how this game is played," Jay had said, barely believing what Zarra had been trying. Big, arrogant Echo Leader, pleading for mercy? And more than that, she had believed that Jay would listen to her?_

"_Listen to me, please," Zarra had said, a note of desperation sneaking into her voice. "You… you can't do this. Echo needs to be at the top of the score charts. Three-quarters of my guys are deadbeats and academy dropouts. I dragged them up from the gutter, gave them purpose. If you take us down, what happens? You get some special award? My guys lose and they'll fall right back into drinking, spice, and gambling. We _need _this win."_

"_Do you really think I believe that?"_

"_I'm just asking you to give us a break. You Phantoms can regroup too. And if you beat us there, squad-to-squad, we'll just walk away."_

"_I'm not-"_

"_Jay," a familiar voice had suddenly said. "Let her go."_

"_Sade? Are you serious?"_

"_She may be the most arrogant witch I've ever known," Sade had said, "but she's still one of us. Let her regroup. Your mission was successful; there's no way she can make it through this scrimmage. At least give her the courtesy of trying to fight back."_

_Jay had hesitated, indecision making her finger hover over the cannon trigger._

_After all the fighting in the scrimmage, was she just going to let Zarra go? Would she make Yessir and Turina's losses mean nothing?_

_Sade had been right, though. Zarra was still a Navy sister. And in a real battle, Jay would need to know that the Echoes had her back. Taking Zarra down a peg, teaching Echo Squadron a lesson, was not exactly the best way to make them allies._

_Slowly, she had moved her finger away from the trigger and pulled her Interceptor around. Zarra's ship had soared away into space, heading for the far end of the scrimmage field as fast as her ship's engines could push her._

"_You made the right choice," Sade had said. "Mercy in battle is far more important than your kill score."_

"_Yeah," Jay had sighed. "And I still had two Echo kills. I guess that counts for something."_

"_Head on back to our rendezvous point," he'd said. "You've been on your own in this scrimmage for too long, Phoenix."_

"_On my way, flyboy," she had replied. She had sighed and taken one last look back at Zarra's retreating fighter, then had depressed the accelerator pedal and shot off toward the rest of Phantom Squadron._

Jay rested her chin on her palm and sighed, watching the rain drip off the forest weave cover in front of her.

"So what happened then?"

Jay shrugged and looked over at Mia. "We won the scrimmage. It was actually Oppan who took Zarra out, but there's really no big surprise there. Phantom didn't get the victory we'd wanted, but it was still impressive. Hard-Ass Utapass said he'd never seen such a dynamic squad in the Imperial Navy."

"I'll bet that made you proud," Mia said, adjusting the rifle lying across her lap. "You worked hard to get Phantom to work as a team."

"Sade and I both did. We were… so proud of our pilots. Even Yessir and Dwarf, who'd been some of the first fighters taken out."

She smiled. "Things just got crazier when the rest of the Interceptor squadrons threw a congratulations party for Phantom that night. Everyone showed up, even the Echoes."

"And how did that turn out? Was there any animosity between the squads?"

"You know, there wasn't. Zarra and the Echoes partied with the rest of us. I think giving her the chance to regroup her squad finally showed her that the Phantoms weren't that bad."

"So you managed to win the scrimmage and settle a three-year rivalry between squads? Pretty impressive."

"No," Jay said. "I didn't do it alone. I would have blasted Zarra's Interceptor out of commission if Sade hadn't told me otherwise. He deserved as much credit as I did."

She shook her head and said, "Like it makes much difference now. Zarra and the Echoes were killed in action during the Malachor counterinsurgency just like the rest of Phantom."

Mia stared at her for a moment, then said, "You know… Mandalorians believe that as long as you remember someone, they never die. The fact that you can remember these events so well guarantees their immortality."

"That's comforting in theory," Jay sighed, "but I can remember the day they were killed just as well."

"Then don't focus on that now. What happened during the party afterwards?"

She shook her head. "I'm not up to that story right now."

The other woman shrugged. "Whenever you're up to it."

Jay shook her head and stared out into the rain, content to let the matter rest. It was a long time before she spoke again.

"They're out there, aren't they? The men trying to kill me."

Mia didn't try to comfort her with dishonesty. She just nodded and said, "It's very probable."

"Is there any chance that I'm going to survive the next few hours?"

Mia nudged her shoulder, a smile on her face. "You're an accomplished bounty huntress with two others watching your back. You've survived assassination attempts by everything from Twi'lek gangsters to Barabel mass-murderers. Mandalorian or not, these guys won't know what hit them."

Jay nodded, not quite believing her. Then she settled back and turned her gaze to the forest, watching for the murderers it hid beneath its canopy.

* * *

Brianna paced up and down the hall, staring at the comlink in her hand. She had already dialed in the calling code, and all she had to do now was push the button to send the transmission and he'd be on the other end of the line.

But she couldn't bring herself to push the button. Her mind kept returning to her earlier conversation with Jay. The young woman had witnessed her boyfriend being killed; it had happened right in front of her eyes. She couldn't even begin to imagine the pain that Jay had to live with every moment of her life.

She didn't want Vhetin to have to experience that. Chances were that if she, Jay, and Mia fell here, at the bastion, the Mandos hunting them would hide their bodies in the woods. If she kept silent, Vhetin would live out the rest of his life not knowing what happened to them.

Was that better than coming home to a crime scene on his front door? Was a vanished girlfriend better than a corpse?

She bit her lower lip, then took a deep breath and pushed the transmission button. There was a quiet beep of a dialing tone, then another, then another. Brianna waited with her breath held in anticipation. After a few tense moments, the comm switched over to voice messaging.

"This is Vhetin," his voice said. "If you have a contract proposition, input the number one to mark it as such. If not, input the number two and I'll get back to you as soon as possible."

There was another quiet buzz and she sighed and said, "Hey Cin, it's Bri. I… guess I caught you while you're out working. I'll try to make this quick, I guess."

She closed her eyes and continued, "I have something kind of important to tell you. Um… things have gotten a lot more dangerous since I last called you. Turns out the people trying to kill Jay are renegade Mandalorians. They've managed to track us to the bastion and they should be here before long."

She hesitated. "We're cut off, outnumbered, and outgunned. I just wanted to tell you, just in case… I just wanted to say that you… are the only thing that matters to me. You're my entire world and it's because of it that I'm calling. I don't want you to come home and not know what happened. Um… I love you, Cin. No matter what happens, I… I'll always love you."

She stared at the comm and sighed. "I'd ask you to call me back, but I might be in the middle of something. I'll, uh, call you if I get the chance."

"I love you," she said again, then squeezed her eyes shut and cut off the transmission with the push of a button. She took a deep breath, then another.

The call didn't lift the weight that had descended on her shoulders, but she did feel a little calmer. All her loose ends were tied up, just in case things went south.

She brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and shouldered her rifle, setting the bastion door's security code level to its highest setting as she headed outside. If anyone tried to enter without the code, they'd get a debilitating electrical shock. It would serve as a good deterrent in case they needed to fall back inside.

She hoped it wouldn't come to that.

She heard thunder rumble overhead, muffled by the bastion's thick walls. The sound became exponentially louder as she opened the heavy durasteel front door and stepped out into the rain.

She looked up into the dark sky and winced slightly as another blinding fork of lightning shot across the clouds, bright enough to leave her blinking away the image of the flash. She looked away as she made her way up the sloped dome roof of the bastion.

"Hey," she said as she saw Mia's forest-weave shelter. "Anything?"

"Nothing yet," Jay said, moving over to allow Brianna enough room to squeeze in out of the rain. "Just a lot of rain and lightning."

Mia had her red-white helmet on and was scanning the area, her helmeted gaze moving slowly back and forth over the area. When she spoke, her voice sounded gravely and threatening over her helmet's vocoder.

"I'm picking up nothing on life scanners but normal forest life trying to get out of the storm," she said. "But they're out there. I know it."

Brianna cracked a smile. "You're starting to sound like Cin. Next you're going to start saying you can smell them."

"I can't," Mia said. "But Vhetin's psychometry would come in handy right about now."

Brianna unclipped a thermal imager from her belt and slipped the scanner over her eyes. The dark forest suddenly lit up in bright reds and oranges, picking out every moving object and outlining it in bright blue.

"I've already checked, double-checked, and triple-checked," Mia said. "There's no one out there."

"It pays to be careful. If we lower our guard now we're sure to be dead."

After several minutes of scrutiny, Brianna pulled off her thermal imager and clipped it back onto her belt. Then she pulled her hand-length vibroblade from its sheath on her hip and began twirling it between her fingers absently.

"You have your bow ready?" Jay asked her.

Brianna patted the pack over her shoulder where she kept her compound bow set. "The string's been rewound, all the bolts have been tightened, and the sights have been adjusted accordingly. Add that to the twelve new arrows I picked up at the last Market Day and I'm all set to go."

"Good," Jay said. "Something tells me we're gonna need all the weapons we can-"

She was interrupted as a bright red blaster bolt exploded out of the trees. She shouted in pain as the laser bolt hit her shoulder, sending her toppling backwards through the back of the forest-weave cover. She rolled down the curved side of the bastion before her head hit against a protruding stone, knocking her unconscious.

"Damn it," Brianna shouted, drawing her pistol. "Mia! Cover Jay!"

Two more red bolts shot out of the trees, hitting against the bastion roof and making the leaves and twigs of the roof flare up for a moment before the rain quenched the flames.

Brianna rolled to her feet, quickly checking the tibanna charge of her treasured twin pistols before snapping off four shots into the trees.

"Brianna!" Mia called from behind the bastion. "Jay's unconscious, but she's okay!"

"Keep guarding her. I'll take care of these _chakarre_."

She fired off another two shots into the forest, trying to flush their attackers into the open. No such luck; red blaster bolts continued to shoot out from the darkness. Surprisingly, though, all the shots missed. Brianna frowned, falling to her stomach on the damp bastion roof. She pulled her thermal imager from her belt and slipped it over her head again. The forest lit up around her and Brianna studied the trees, watching for their attackers.

_They can't see me_, she thought with a smile. _They're shooting at me, but they can't see me. They're just trying to scare me into giving away my position._

She couldn't risk firing off more shots and allowing them to pinpoint her location. She holstered her pistols and slowly pulled the cover off the bow stored in her pack. She rose to her knees as she pulled the cap off her cylindrical arrow quiver. She slowly pulled an arrow from the tube and clipped it onto the bowstring, drawing the string back to the anchor position near her chin.

The thermal imager picked several different heat signatures out from the cold rain. She set the scanner to isolate only heat signatures, and a triumphant grin tugged at her lips as she saw eight different beings, glowing orange against the darkness of the forest. Five of them were bulky enough to be wearing armor, while three were obviously lighter-armed scouts. They would be the first ones to fall.

"Gotcha," she whispered, then fired. Her arrow whistled into the trees, its departure quickly followed by a scream of pain.

"What the hell?" a voice shouted in _Mando'a_. "What happened to Roan?"

Brianna swiveled toward the voice, nocking another arrow onto the string. She drew the arrow back to her anchor point, waiting for the voice to speak again. Sure enough, it did.

"Arrows? Who the _shab_ uses arrows any more?"

Brianna sighted in on the orange-lit figure, the circular target mounted just above the bow's handgrip glowing green to indicate a good shot. She let out her breath in a quick _huff_ and released the arrow. It vanished into the forest, striking the orange figure in the stomach and sending him sprawling. It wasn't long before she downed the other scout who came over to see what was going on.

_Three down_, she thought as the third scout crumpled to the ground. _Five to go._

"Keep your heads down, lads!" a man shouted in a heavily accented voice. "Switch to low-light HUD enhancements."

_Oh _shab, Brianna thought. She fell onto her stomach again, slinging her bow over her shoulder. If some of these guys had their helmets as well, they'd have HUD systems more than capable of picking her out of the darkness. Brianna had hoped that the lightning had messed with their HUDs too much for them to be used.

_I need a different plan of action_, she thought. She belly-crawled up to the forest-weave covering and slipped down over the other side to where Mia knelt over Jay's unconscious form.

Jay didn't look good; she was dirty and her clothes were soaked with rain and mud. She had cut open her forehead when she'd hit it against the rock and the wound was bleeding profusely. Mia was attempting to mop up the blood with a surgical sponge.

"How is she?" Brianna asked.

Mia shook her helmeted head. Her rangefinder was lowered as she scanned the unconscious woman's vitals. "She's fine. I've tried waking her up, but she hit her head pretty hard. How's the situation up top?"

"We've got five more guys up there. Worst case scenario: they've all got full body armor and armor systems as well as typical Mando weapons. You know, jetpack rockets, wrist darts, whipcord launchers-"

"Okay, I get the picture," the white-armored woman interrupted. "It's bad?"

Brianna nodded, picking up Mia's rifle. "I'll try holding them off as long as I can. If Jay can wake up any time soon and lend a hand, I'll be most appreciative."

"I'm working on it."

Brianna crawled back up to the top of the roof, shouldering the rifle as she activated her thermal imager again. This time, however, when the world lit up into bright yellows and reds, she wasn't able to see any of their attackers. It was as if they'd vanished.

She narrowed her eyes as she felt the rain begin to ease. Her eyes darted over the area, searching, paying close attention to any detail she could pick out.

A sudden blast of bright orange flame instantly drew her attention. She swiveled her body over to face the light, sighting in on the figures she saw there. As she did, she let out a quiet curse.

The five remaining Mandalorians – all wearing full body armor – were standing in a small clearing in a rough circle. Their left arms were extended, facing outward, and long spouts of flame were erupting from their gauntlets. Trees all around the clearing burst into flame, the tendrils of fire leaping from branch to branch. Soon, entire trees were on fire, and the inferno was already spreading.

"Mia," she called over her shoulder. "We have a problem."

"What?"

Brianna squinted as she picked out the five Mandalorians from the outlined shapes of the trees. "It looks like our Mandos are using some kind of liquid flamesprayers."

"Oh _shab_."

Brianna silently agreed with the older woman. Flamesprayers – not to be confused with flame_throwers_ – were an experimental Mandalorian weapon that used gauntlet-mounted sprayers to coat the area with a film of fuel before igniting it. The result was basically liquid fire, designed to catch damp areas aflame.

It seemed to be working perfectly for the still-dripping trees surrounding the bastion. As Brianna watched, the flames rose and engulfed more of the surrounding area, growing closer and closer with every moment.

_Damn it, _she thought. _This is not going to end well._

* * *

_Jay had smiled, looking around the small room as Phantom Squad had celebrated their victory. The other squads had showed up for the party as well, congratulating the new top squadron on the _Triumphant_. While alcoholic beverages had been prohibited onboard Star Destroyers, the fighter pilots had been guzzling down shot glasses of filtered water like it was addictive Corellian booze._

_After a time, Zarra had sidled up to where Jay had been leaning casually against the wall and held out her hand._

"_Good flying out there," the other woman had reluctantly said. "I'm positive that the scrimmage would have been over before it began if you hadn't pulled off and let Echo regroup."_

"_Don't thank me too much," Jay had said. "I was half a heartbeat away from pulling that trigger."_

_Zarra had stared at her with those dark eyes, then her face had broken into a smile and she'd laughed. She had clapped Jay on the shoulder and said, "You know what? You're not all that bad, Phantom Two."_

"_Yeah… you aren't either," Jay had said truthfully._

_Zarra had winked and said, "I look forward to flying with you. You can be my wingwoman any time."_

_Jay had nodded and thanked the squad leader. Zarra had nodded respectfully one more time before turning and wading into the crowd, heading for another glass of water. Jay had watched her go before turning her gaze back to the crowd at large. She had jumped slightly in surprise when she'd seen that Sade was suddenly standing next to her, also leaning up against the wall._

_He had stared after Zarra with a thoughtful look on his face. Then he'd turned his gaze to Jay and said, "You did well out there, sparing her."_

"_If the Echoes had been real enemies," she had said, "I wouldn't have been so merciful."_

"_I don't doubt it," he had chuckled. He'd put a hand on her shoulder and said, "I'm proud of you, Jay. I told you that all you needed was to believe in yourself."_

"_I don't know. I'd like to think my piloting skill had something to do with it."_

"_Okay, and that."_

"_And I couldn't have done it without Dwarf and Yessir."_

"_And that. But-"_

"_And Switch was giving me logistical support the whole time."_

"_Well-"_

"_And you were giving out the orders."_

"_Okay," he had laughed. "Okay, you've made your point. All I'm trying to say is that this is _your _victory as well. For all the help you claim you had during the scrimmage, you need to know that we couldn't have done any of it without you."_

"_I don't think-"_

"_No," he'd interrupted, "now it's time for me to make my point. Follow me outside for a minute, will you? I… want to tell you something and I want to be able to hear myself think."_

_She had frowned in curiosity but followed him outside. He'd held the door open for her and stepped out behind her into the deserted corridor outside._

"_Okay, flyboy," she'd said, turning. "What's the big-"_

_She'd broken off with a surprised gasp as he'd kissed her on the lips, holding her shoulders gently. She had let out a quiet gasp of surprise before putting her hands on his chest and pushing him away._

"_What the hell are you doing?" she had asked, breathing hard as she held him against the wall with her hands on his chest._

"_I… I just wanted to show you that… Jay, _I _couldn't have done all that you have. Before you showed up, Phantom was a disgrace and I didn't do anything about it. _You _brought us to the top of the charts. _You _made the pilots work together. And-"_

"_Why did you kiss me?"_

"_I-I care about you," he stammered. He suddenly looked very nervous, no longer the charming, confident squad leader she had known for so long. "Don't you feel something for me?"_

"_I…" she closed her eyes and stepped back. "I do. I do, Sade. But if anyone found out about this…"_

"_We could keep it a secret," he said, stepping toward her. "No one would have to know."_

_She turned back toward him, very aware of how close they were standing. She'd looked up into his green eyes and hesitantly took his hand. She had sighed and said, "Sade… we could lose everything if this went wrong."_

"_But think of what we could accomplish," he said. "All I want is you by my side, in the cockpit and in normal life. You're the kindest, funniest, most beautiful woman I've ever known and I'd be willing to lose it all if I just had you."_

_She had nodded, silently agreeing with him. She had been forced to admit that her feelings for Sade had grown in the past six months, and she had not been able to ignore the excited flutter of her heart as she held his hand. She had taken a deep breath, steeling herself for her decision._

"_What do you say?" he'd asked her. "Will you be more than just my second-in-command?"_

"_Yes," she'd said with a smile. She'd looked up and put a hand on his cheek, kissing him softly on the lips. He'd grinned and kissed her back._

"_But," she had said, suddenly pulling away, "I have one condition."_

"_What?"_

"_If we're going to continue this," she said with a shy smile, "we're going to have to go somewhere more private. I'm thinking… your quarters?"_

_He had stared at her, uncomprehending for a moment, then he'd smiled and led her down the hall._

_It wasn't long before she had begun to sneak out of her own private quarters after lights-out to spend the nights with him. It was difficult to keep their relationship a secret; every glance at each other, every smile shared, every comment made had the potential to uncover them. But they had both been resolute and most of their fellow pilots had had bigger issues to worry about._

_Almost two months later, as she lay in his arms one night, he had stroked her hair and whispered, "Jay?"_

"_Hmm?" she had said, looking up at him and resting her chin on his chest. "Something wrong?"_

_He had hesitated, obviously trying to put his feelings into words. "I just wanted to say… you're the best thing that has ever happened to me. I love you, Jay."_

_She had stared at him, then grinned widely. It was the first time he'd said that to her. "You must have enjoyed yourself tonight. I didn't think I was performing _that _well."_

"_I'm being serious. I love you."_

_She rested her head on his chest and reached down to take his hand. "I know you're serious," she whispered. "I love you too."_

_They had lain in silence for a time before he had said, "Let's record it."_

_She'd glanced up at him again and frowned in confusion. "Okay, flyboy, I don't know where you're going with this, but I'm not going to vid record us sleeping together."_

"_Not that. I mean, let's make a recording of us saying we love each other. It'll make solo deployments easier to bear."_

"_I don't understand."_

_He had sat up, the covers of his cot falling off of him and revealing his muscled chest and tattooed arms. "It'll be easy. Come on, let's try it."_

_He'd got up from his cot and had begun rummaging through a locker mounted along one wall. He'd tossed uniforms and regulation booklets over his shoulder and muttered, "Come on… where the hell is it. I know it's in here somewhere…"_

_After a moment he'd whispered, "Got it!" and pulled out a handheld vid recorder. He'd mimed looking through it and turned to Jay._

"_Smile, beautiful," he'd said with a grin._

_She'd held a hand up to block the machine's receiver and said, "Come on, baby. Knock it off."_

"_Not until you agree to try this," he'd said, moving the recorder out of the way of her hand._

"_Okay," she'd finally relented. "But I'm not going to do it naked. Let me get dressed first."_

"_Of course," he'd said, following her with the recorder as she rose to grab her uniform pants and jacket. She'd seen him doing it and tossed a pillow at him._

"_You need to get dressed too," she said. "And try to look respectable."_

_He'd chuckled and began gathering up his clothes as well. Five minutes later they had both been ready. Sade had sat down on the edge of the cot and turned the vid recorder over in his hands. After a moment he began pushing random buttons._

"_Actually," he'd said, "I've never used this piece of junk before. What... where's the button_?"

_Jay had looked over at him and grinned. She had reached for the recorder, but wasn't able to grab it as he'd turned it around, searching for the record button. _"_It's right - okay, stop moving and I'll show you_. _Will you stop messing around?_"

_He'd pulled it out of her reach possessively and adopted a mock-scowl. _"_You should have more respect for your superiors_."

"_Superior my ass_," _she had laughed._ "_You can't even work a simple holocam_."

"_Okay, okay_," _he'd said, looking at a black button near the recorder's handgrip_. _He'd turned the recorder over, staring into the receiver. _ "_I think I got it_."

"_Do I look all right?_" _Jay had asked, nervously smoothing down her uniform jacket's sleeves. She'd gotten into full regulation uniform, with her long hair tied back in a tight braid. She had adjusted her identification badge as she'd looked at herself in the mirror over the room's washbasin. _

_Sade was dressed simply in his uniform pants and a sleeveless white undershirt. He'd turned the recorder around to face her, looking into the machine's viewfinder as he recorded her. "You look beautiful," he had said._

_She'd glared at the cam and said, "I'm serious. If this is ever discovered and we get court-martialed, I at least want to look professional in the evidence that's going to send us to the stockade_."

"_Come on. We're just doing this for a gag."_

_"It doesn't matter."_

_He'd laughed_. "_You look very professional. Like you're dressed to greet Lord Vader himself._"

"_Okay_," _she'd said, smoothing out her uniform and letting out a long breath. She hadn't known why she was so nervous. It hadn't been like anyone would find the recording. It would be safely stored in their separate, private datapads. Everything would be fine. _"_I'm ready_."

"_You sure?_"

_She'd nodded. _"_As sure as I'll ever be._"

"_Okay," he'd said, rotating the recorder around to face him. He flashed her a grin as she had sat down at his side. He'd looked into the recorder and quickly adopted what Jay called his 'Commander Voice.'_

"_Here follows the official transcript of Nesson, Sade," he'd said, "Captain First Class, serial number TA-2334A and Kolta, Jayshiea, Captain Third Class, serial number OC-9871Q._"

_He'd looked over at Jay and said,_ "_You want to start?_"

"_With pleasure_," _she'd said with a nervous grin. She had looked into the camera's receiver and said, "As per Imperial regulation TT-38, no military personnel may have personal relationships for as long as their tour of duty lasts. But I am officially stating that I have broken that rule._"

_She had looked over at Sade and gently taken his hand. He had squeezed it reassuringly and she had squeezed back._ "_For whoever may discover this message, I am officially stating that I love Captain Sade Nesson._"

"_And I am officially stating that I love Captain Jay Kolta_," _he'd said, grinning at her. "And that no matter how many court-martials someone threatens to slap on my sorry hide, I'll still love her._"

_He'd looked at the cam and suddenly said,_ "_So take _that _and choke on it you bureaucratic Imperial kriffers! How 'bout that?_"

_She had laughed and squeezed his hand. She'd bit her lower lip in hesitation, then said, "And just to speed along our trial should we be court-martialed, I give you Exhibit A."_

_Then she had reached over, grabbed his face, and kissed him deeply. He had murmured his approval, touching her shoulders as she'd put her hands on his chest. She had pulled back and they had broken into laughter again. He had switched off the recorder and said, "There. That wasn't so hard, was it?"_

"_No," she'd admitted. "Kind of enjoyable, actually. It feels good to actually say it all out loud."_

_He'd grinned and said, "Then say it again."_

_She had laughed and mock-tackled him, pinning him on his back on the cot as she rested herself on top of him. She had leaned down, her face only centimeters from his, and whispered, "I love you, Sade. Now shut up and kiss me."_

Jay suddenly started awake, her head pounding. She sat up quickly, crying, "Sade?"

"Whoa," a woman's voice said. She felt hands on her shoulders, pushing her back down on her back. "Welcome back."

"What… what happened?" she asked, holding her head. She felt the sticky feeling of blood beneath her fingers.

"We're under attack," Mia explained, pulling a roll of bandages from her belt and beginning to wrap it slowly around Jay's forehead. "You were knocked off the roof of the bastion and you hit your head. Are you all right?"

She'd nodded groggily, the cold rain feeling good on her suddenly hot forehead. "How're we doing?"

"Brianna is doing a pretty good job of keeping these guys off of us right now."

The loud _snap snap_ of a high-powered rifle sounded from further up the sloping roof of the bastion and Brianna's smooth Coruscanti accent sounded over the fire. "Not as good as I'd like. As soon as you're ready, Jay, I could use a hand."

Jay moved to rise and help the huntress but Mia pushed her back down. "No," she said. "Rest for a minute. I'll help Brianna."

The white-armored woman grabbed a rifle from nearby and clambered up the sloping roof and out of sight. Jay watched her go before collapsing onto her back. She felt rain patter gently against her face, easing the pain in her pounding head.

* * *

"What do you think?" Mia asked, the targeting scope of her rifle pressed against her helmet visor.

Brianna shook her head, staring through the scope of her own rifle. "I can't see any of 'em, and the fire is wreaking hell with this damn thermal imager."

She ripped the machine off her face and tossed it aside, listening to it bounce down the side of the bastion. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness of the nighttime forest, then looked through her rifle scope again.

Dancing tendrils of flame arced from tree to tree with every passing moment and the blaze started by the hostile Mandalorians now engulfed the entire forest in front of the bastion. Brianna and Mia were now staring into a solid wall of twenty-foot flames.

"Why do you think they started the fire?" Mia asked, wiping rain out of her face. The motion left a dark smear across her smooth forehead; the ash from the fire was mixing with the rain, making a heavy sludge that spattered down in filthy, fat drops.

"I don't know," Brianna replied, moving her rifle barrel over the area. "Maybe to scare us, maybe to camouflage their movements… It doesn't make sense, though; Vhetin cut down all the grass and trees around the bastion. There's nothing to burn, so the fire will die out in half an hour at most anyway."

"So why start it in the first place?"

"_Shab_," Brianna cursed. "These guys are Mandalorians; we live with guys like them every day. We should know how they think."  
"Mandos are an unpredictable bunch," Mia whispered. "Even after years and years of living with them, it's hard to know what they're going to spring next."

"Give it up!" a male voice suddenly rang out from the treeline. "Give up the _aruetii_ rookie and the others can leave unharmed."

"We just want the rookie," another voice shouted from a different direction. "There's no sense in you dying for her!"

"Kark you!" Brianna shouted back as Mia sighed in exasperation. "You want her, you're gonna need to come over here and get her!"

"I never thought Mandos were for psychological warfare," Mia muttered, half to herself.

"Look at the situation you're in!" one of the Mandos shouted to them. "A wall of fire ahead, and miles of unexplored wilderness behind you. You have our word that we'll let the rest of you go if you just hand over the _aruetii_."

"You. Cannot. _Have. _Her!" Brianna shouted at them, and fired in the direction of the voice. She smiled as she heard a panicked curse. "Throw a fit if you want, but leave us alone!"

The forest fell silent, save for the slow, pattering rain, the thunder overhead, and the steadily growing roar of the flames in front of them. Brianna stared around the forest, eyes narrowed, listening intently for a reply. After a time she looked over at Mia and said, "You think they actually did it? Do you think they left?"

Mia shook her head, brushing a strand of wet blond hair out of her eyes. "I don't know. I don't hear anything. Maybe…"

Both women fell silent as a high-pitched series of beeps suddenly broke the silence. Brianna's gaze snapped toward the sound, then she cursed and scrambled to her feet as she saw a small dark orb hurtling through the air toward them.

"Grenade!" she shouted, grabbing Mia by the back of her _beskar'gam_'s collar guard and hauling them both down the side of the bastion. They rolled and slipped down the curved surface before landing in a heap near Jay's prone form.

The grenade bounced twice, then detonated in a sudden wash of flame and sound. Brianna grimaced and clapped her hands over her ringing ears as the explosion faded, covering her head as a rain of damp debris fell around them.

Mia groaned and rose to her hands and knees. She looked up at the smoking crater where they had rested only moments ago, then looked over to Brianna with watering eyes and coughed, "Thanks for that."

Brianna shook her head. "_Kih'parjai_. But I think we need to deal with these guys _now_."

"That was your one warning!" the man's voice called from the trees again. "Next time we're coming in there ourselves!"

"I'd like to see you try!" Brianna shouted as she reloaded her rifle. She slapped the magazine into place and hefted the weapon. "Its not an honorable tactic to hide out in the forest! A real Mando would fight us face-to-face."

"We've offered you mercy, haven't we?"

"And then promptly threw a thermal det at us. Excuse me if I don't take your promises at face-value."

"We just want the _aruetii_ girl. Give her up and we'll be on our way."

Jay coughed and shook her head as she rose to her feet. "Give me a weapon. I'll help."

Brianna stared at her. There was no denying that the woman looked pretty beat up; the blaster burn on her arm was still smoking, her forehead was bleeding despite the hasty bandage wrapped around it, and her clothes were torn and spattered with mud.

"She's in no condition to fight," Mia said, shaking her head. "We need to get her out of here."

"We can't _get_ out of here," Jay pointed out. "That wall of fire is blocking the way to our ships."

Brianna stared at the young woman, then sighed and said, "I have a plan."

She pulled one of her pistols, spinning it around so she gripped it by the barrel, and handed it to Jay. As the woman moved to take it, Brianna said, "I'm going to head out and see if I can't find where these _chakarre_ are hiding. If we're lucky, I'll be able to distract them long enough for you two to make a break for the ships. When I shout at you to go, you run as fast as you can. Get to the ships and get the hell out of here."

"Are you crazy?" Mia snapped. "You against five fully armored Mandalorians? That's suicide!"

"It's your only chance of getting Jay out of here," Brianna shot back. "And if I have to stay behind to make sure she gets away, so be it."

"Don't do this, Brianna. Think about-"

"Look, I know this area better than anyone else here. I've spent more time up here than any of you. I'll lead these guys around the woods, pick 'em off one by one. If worst comes to worst, I'll hole up inside the bastion and keep them at bay until Shysa and the supercommandos get back from the mining post next week."

She hesitated, then turned to Jay and said, "If I don't come back… will you tell Cin… tell him I…"

Jay nodded as she took the pistol. "I'll tell him. I promise."

Brianna nodded, satisfied. She took one last look at the two other women, then said, "_Ret'urcye mhi, ner vode_."

Both Mia and Jay knew what that meant, and they nodded somberly as they prepared to retreat for the ships.

_Maybe we'll meet again_, Brianna translated in her mind. Then she took a deep breath, unslung her bow again, and said, "Remember, run when I give you the signal. Don't you dare hesitate or look back. If you do, your asses are mine."

Jay just stared at her and murmured, "Good luck."

Brianna forced a smile as she turned away. "And to you, Rookie."

Then she sprinted into the trees, scooping up the thermal imager from the ground as she went and slipping it over her eyes. The forest lit up into bright colors once again. She reached over her shoulder and drew an arrow from the quiver on her shoulder, clipping it on the string in a smooth, well-practiced motion.

_Come on you_ fierfeks, she thought. _I'm right here. Come and get me._

The trees all around her were on fire now, though the flames were slowly beginning to die down. Ash floated lazily through the air and Brianna grimaced against the waves of heat that blasted against her face. The entire area in front of her was a solid sheet of fire and the ground was blackened and scorched underfoot.

She heard a branch crack off to her left and she swiveled to face it, drawing the string back to her anchor point. But it was nothing but a tree branch — weakened by the flames that jumped along its length — falling to the forest floor below.

She let out a long breath and thought, _Okay. Calm down and keep your wits about you. You're not out of this yet._

She almost jumped out of her skin when one of the Mandalorians shouted again. His voice echoed out from the burned, dead trees, saying, "You're running out of time. Make your decision."

Brianna turned toward the voice, her face a mask of determination as she crept forward. Her fingers tensed around the string of her bow as she quietly slipped through the damp foliage. The man continued to shout out demands for their surrender, conveniently drawing her closer and closer toward him.

_I've got you now_, she thought, narrowing her eyes. She tensed for a moment, then sprang through the bushes, shouting, "Mia! Jay! Now!"

Then her heart ran cold as she jumped fully into the clearing and saw no armored Mandalorian shouting orders. All she could see was an audio amplifier hooked up to a mobile comlink. As she watched, the amplifier blared and spat out, "We'll give you five minutes more, then we're coming in there!"

"Oh no," she muttered. "It's a trap."

Then something hard hit the back of her head and she cried out in pain. She was thrown forward onto the ground, her bow flying from her grasp.

"Yeah," the Mandalorian — the _real_ Mandalorian this time — snarled at her. "It is."

Then he drew back his foot and kicked her hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her. She gasped and clutched at her stomach, curling up into a tight ball as he kicked her again. She tried to draw her remaining pistol, but he stepped on her wrist and ground her arm into the dirt, wrenching the weapon from her grip.

"No!" she cried before he kicked her again.

"I gave you the chance to leave," the man snapped. He was dressed in dark blue battle armor that glistened with rain water. "But I guess you're just too stupid to accept the offers of a gracious _Mando'ad_ such as myself."

"You're trying to kill an innocent woman," she gasped, "for no reason at all. There's nothing gracious about that."

He kicked her in the face with the hard toe of his boot and she cried out in pain again as her head was lashed to one side. She grimaced and held her face, feeling her hands come away sticky with blood.

"I'm doing _te Mand'alor_ a damn _favor _by getting rid of that rookie!" the man snarled. "I should be getting the damn Jaig _eyes_!"

"You're a disgrace," Brianna coughed, holding her stomach and squeezing her eyes shut against the pain, "even for an assassin. You're an insult to the Mandalorian name."

"No," he said, kneeling next to her and grabbing her face in a gloved hand. She watched through streaming eyes as the other five Mandos seemed to melt out of the forest around them. Still-flaming ash rained down around them, making them look as if they were emerging from the mouth of hell itself.

The Mandalorian put his helmet facemask close to hers and said, "I'm not disgracing the Mandalorians. I'm _saving_ them."

He released her face and stepped back. He stared at her through the expressionless T-visor of his battle helmet and said, "Even a simple _aruetii_ such as yourself must see that Mandalore is ill. Your kind overrun our planet, threatening to smother us pure-born Mandalorians with sheer numbers."

"Mandalore… has always been a poor frontier world," Brianna panted, trying to raise herself onto her hands and knees. Her arms wobbled unsteadily and she fell back to the ground with a grunt. "Mandalorians have never been ones to live in luxury."

"Don't you dare try to lecture me about the nature of the Mandalorians!" he shouted, lashing out with another kick to the stomach. She grunted in pain as her breath was knocked away again.

He stared at her, breathing hard, before saying, "Can you blame me for trying to do something about it? For trying to better _manda'yaim_ for all my brethren?"

"By killing innocents?"

"But not at the cost of any _vode's_ lives or livelihoods. It was really an ingenious plan."

"Yeah?" Brianna grimaced as she spoke. "Tell me about it."

"Only the intelligence of a true _Mando'ad_ could come up with a plan like this. I, Xac Suirotnoc, came up with the idea to target Kolta. I scouted out the Torch-Bomb Gang members in Keldabe. I came up with the idea to make our hits look like Torch-Bomb assassination attempts in order to cover our trail."

"Not well enough," she choked out. "We managed to see through your little plan."

"A small setback that, in the end, brought Kolta right into our hands."

"Why do you care so much about _her_? Why not just shoot a random _aruetii_ on the street?"

Suirotnoc chuckled. "Kolta is a rising figure in the bounty hunting industry. Mandalorians are beginning to pay attention to her. Who would have known that bounty hunter Jamie Moqena was really Jay Kolta, Imperial fugitive?"

"So your plan was to kill her and accept the reward? I'm sorry, but that takes away all the menace of your plan. All this is because of greed?"

Suirotnoc just stared at her, clenching a fist. She grinned slightly and muttered, "Fat lot of good it did you."

"What is that? You think you can stop us if your friend gets away?" Suirotnoc scoffed. "You think you've accomplished something by trying to stop us on your own?"

He knelt down in front of her and said, "You may believe that you've done something incredibly brave by sacrificing yourself here. You haven't. Even if Kolta gets away, we'll still find her. We'll still hunt her everywhere she goes. After all, we're Mandalorian, and we're very good at that."

He straightened and moved to walk away. One of the Mandos — a man in dull green armor — watched him pass and growled, "What do we do with her?"

"She's not important any more," Suirotnoc said with a shrug. "Kill her."

Brianna let out a sigh as the green-armored Mando drew a pistol from his hip and aimed it at her. Feeling remarkably calm, she slowly closed her eyes and prepared for her end.

* * *

Jay did as she had been told and ran through the forest underbrush as fast as she could, willing herself not to look back. Brianna was a capable bounty huntress and was accustomed to fighting for her friends. Like she herself had said, she knew these woods like the back of her hand, and would surely give these Mandalorians hell.

So why did Jay feel so guilty about leaving her behind?

It was too similar to what had happened at Malachor, too similar to the way she had lost Sade. It made her feel like a coward all over again and she had sworn to herself that she would never make that same mistake again.

What would Sade think of her now? Would he think she was being cowardly, running from a fight she should rather stand and face? Or would he say she was doing the right thing, retreating so she could bring these murderers to justice instead of letting them slip unpunished into the galaxy's underworld?

_I'm sorry Sade, she thought. I may have helped Phantom at the start, but I failed you all at Malachor. I couldn't protect you. And now I may have led another innocent friend to her deaths here._

_But does it have to be that way?_

She hesitated, slowly jogging to a halt. Ahead of her, Mia stopped as well, turning back to her in confusion.

"What are you doing?" she asked. "We have to get out of here!"

She stared at Mia for a moment, then said, "No."

"What?"

"I... I can't. I can't leave Brianna back there."

"She can handle herself! Trust me, I wouldn't be leaving either if I didn't know that from firsthand experience!"

She shook her head. "No. I can't leave her. I... it's not right."

"So you'd rather go back and be killed?"

"Better than running and hiding like a coward."

Mia rested her hands on her hips impatiently. "If this is Vhetin's Mando training getting at you-"

"No, it's not!" Jay snapped. "I'm speaking from experience, too. I know what happens when you leave friends to fight your battles for you! I know what happens when you _listen_ to their orders to tell you to leave! And I know..."

She swallowed, an uncomfortable lump in her throat, and whispered, "I know what happens when you're not strong enough to cope with the loss."

She looked up and Mia. "I _won't_ let it happen again. I made myself a promise."

"We don't have time for -"

"There's _always_ time for this. You can go to the ships if you want. You can go back to Keldabe, get Denton, and get back here with help. But I'm going back for Brianna and there's nothing you can say to convince me otherwise."

Mia stared at her incredulously, then sighed and said, "I'm not leaving either, then. If you're heading back there, so am I."

"I'm not asking you to."

"And I'm not offering it up for debate."

Jay sighed and drew the pistol she had borrowed from Brianna. "Okay. All I ask is that you don't get in my way. Okay?"

"It depends on what you're planning."

"Just don't. I've made up my mind."

Then Jay turned and ran back the way she'd come, towards the bastion and towards the Mandalorians waiting there for her. She saw flames come into sight again and the distant domed shape of the bastion roof followed moments later.

Jay slowed to a walk and looked around the area, searching for the Mandalorians. When she didn't see them, she raised the pistol in a placating gesture and raised her voice.

"I know you're out there," she called. "I know you're watching me."

She was met with only silence. She hesitated, then said, "Let Brianna go. Take me instead."

"_What_?" Mia whispered furiously.

Jay motioned for her to shut up and shouted, "I don't want any more trouble with you. I just want this to be over."

Finally a voice responded. It was the gravelly voice she'd heard shouting at them earlier, most likely their leader. "Why the sudden change of heart?"

"I don't want anyone else to be hurt because of me. Mack was bad enough, but I won't let Brianna come to harm as well."

"Interesting... You would give your life to let this huntress escape?"

Jay closed her eyes and took a deep breath before shouting, "Yes. Yes I would."

"Don't do it Jay!" Brianna's accented voice suddenly shouted. "If you give yourself up they'll kill us all anyway. Tell them to kiss your-"

She suddenly cried out in pain and fell silent. Jay winced and said, "Don't hurt her any more. I'm giving myself up."

"All right," the Mandalorian said. "Take five steps toward my voice. Drop your weapon and turn in a complete circle. If we decide this isn't a trick, we'll consider your proposal."

"Jay," Mia whispered through clenched teeth, "don't do this."

"I'm not letting this happen again," Jay said. "I didn't survive Malachor just to make the same mistake."

Then she took five steps forward, as instructed, and tossed her pistol aside. She raised her arms above her head and slowly turned in a full circle, no doubt allowing the hidden Mandalorians to scan her for concealed weapons.

"Satisfied?" she asked when her back was to them. "Let Brianna go."

There was a pause and Jay could hear voices whispering over the crackle of the dying flames behind her. Then the Mandalorian called, "All right. We're letting the woman go. Walk toward the sound of my voice."

Jay closed her eyes and slowly began to walk toward the area the Mandalorian's voice was echoing out from. As she drew closer to a small copse of trees, she saw Brianna stumble out as if shoved. Her hair was messy and tangled, her face battered and bloody. She staggered for a moment, struggling to regain her balance, and looked up at Jay with desperate eyes.

"Jay..." she whispered, "don't do this."

"I can't let any of you die for me," Jay whispered. "This is my fight, not yours."

"I chose to help you," Brianna said, catching Jay's arm before she could step out of reach. "It's my choice."

"And this is mine," Jay said simply, then pulled her arm from the huntress' grasp and increased her pace.

Brianna watched her as she strode away. As she drew closer to the trees, the huntress called after her, "You know they aren't going to let us live if you do this. You give yourself up and they'll just kill you first before moving on to us."

"Then leave," Jay called back. "Go for the ships. You know who these guys are. Get Denton to bring them in."

Brianna stared after her, her shoulders slumping in defeat, before she turned to head back toward Mia. Jay watched her go.

_I hope I'm doing the right thing, Sade_, she thought. _I hope I'm not just dooming us all_.

"That's far enough!" the man shouted. "Put your hands on your head and get down on your knees."

Jay did as she was told. As soon as she complied, the bushes around the small copse began to rustle and five dark figures emerged. Jay watched as they fanned out, rifles held at the ready. One of them, dressed in dark blue armor, stepped forward with one of Brianna's pistols held in his hand.

"Are you ready to die?" he asked.

Brianna made a move to step forward but one of the Mandos leveled his rifle at her and growled, "Uh-uh. Unless you want to join her, stop right there."

Jay's heart began to race as the blue Mando pressed the barrel of the pistol against her forehead. He stared at her for what seemed like an eternity, then said, "You _aruetiise_ are barely civilized animals. For generations, you have held the Mandalorians back from being all we aspire to be. We once ruled half this galaxy, yet now we are left to squabble over a few pitifully poor systems while further enslaving ourselves to the likes of you."

He cocked his helmeted head and said, "You are a disease. And we are the cure."

Jay squeezed her eyes shut and thought, _Hold on a little longer, Sade. I'm almost there. I'm coming to you. I'll be with you soon._

"Don't worry," the blue Mando murmured, his voice dark and menacing. "You won't feel a thing."

She couldn't hold back her scream as a blaster shot rang through the night.

A moment passed. Then another. Then another. Jay opened one eye, then the other and looked around in confusion.

_What?_ she thought. _I'm not dead_.

She saw that the five Mandalorians were tossing their weapons away and holding their hands up in surrender. She stared at them in shock, thinking, _What the hell did I miss?_

Then a familiar man's voice said, "Nice to see you boys still know to obey authority. Now if you know what's good for you, you won't try and reach for those guns."

"Denton?" she said in disbelief, clambering to her feet and craning her neck to face the voice. She stared in confusion as she saw the gold-armored man standing with Mia and Brianna, a blaster carbine in his hands.

And he wasn't alone; there were at least ten other fully armored Mandalorians standing with him. If she saw him right, there was even a certain silver Mando standing among their ranks.

"_Mack_?"

The bounty hunter chuckled and hefted his rifle. "What, you didn't think I was going to leave you alone with these _chakaare_ on your tail? I broke out of that damn medcenter as soon as the doctors changed shifts."

Denton began striding among the Mandalorian assassins, clapping stun cuffs on all of them. His handsome face was turned down in a dark scowl and his hands were quivering with rage.

"I have _never_ been so ashamed," he snarled, "to call you fierfeks _brothers_. You're not _Mandalorians_. You're cowards and fools. I'll be surprised if _te Mand'alor_ doesn't kill you himself."

"Let him kill us if he wants," Suirotnoc snapped. "Our deaths will only rally others to our cause."

"Not if it's up here in the mountains," another voice said. Jay and everyone else present turned to face the new speaker, a tall Mandalorian in dull green and white armor. There were two stylized designs on his helmet forehead, variations of the Mandalorian badge of honor known as the _Jaig_ eyes.

Denton bowed his head respectfully and murmured, "_Mand'alor_."

Fenn Shysa stepped through the group of Mandalorians, his hand resting on the butt of his holstered pistol. As he approached the captured Mandalorians, he pulled his helmet off and clipped it to his belt. His long, gaunt face was livid with rage and his green eyes flashed.

"What do you think?" he asked, his accented voice thick with fury. "Out here, in the woods, where no one could even think to look for your bodies. No one would even so much as ask where you'd gone."

"_Mand'alor_-" Suirotnoc began, but Shysa interrupted him with a backhand slap across the face. The blue-armored Mandalorian cursed and fell silent, more humiliated than hurt.

"Don't you _dare_ call me that," Shysa snapped, poking Suirotnoc in the chest. "You lost the privilege to call me by that name the moment you began planning to kill this innocent _aruetii_ lass."

"She's an _aruetii_," one of the Mandos spat. "She deserved to die."

"Did she now? And how do you figure that?"

"The _aruetiise_ have destroyed our way of life," Suirotnoc growled. "They've come in here, taken our land, our _homes_, and reduced us to little more than slaves. They classify us as lawless _mercenaries_ when we used to be a proud warrior people."

"Those days are _over_!" Shysa shouted. "They died with Mandalore the Ultimate! You're trying to relive the glory days of millennia ago!"

"But we can return to those times!" Suirotnoc pressed. "We Mandalorians are strong. We can once again rise to power and make people once more fear the name of _Mand'alor_!"

"We decided as a people to give up that lifestyle. We decided that we weren't meant to rule, but were meant to live our lives as _we _see fit. Our lives are governed by our _aliit_, not the rules of some bureaucratic _aruetii_ government. _That's_ how we won our freedom."

Suirotnoc sneered. "Ah, yes. The Freedom Act of _Mand'alor_ Shysa. Living in an occupied Keldabe with the _aruetii_ Imperials watching over us every moment of every day. That isn't freedom. It's pathetic."

Shysa stared at the blue-armored Mando for a long time before he sighed and rubbed his eyes. He tilted his head back and stared up at the sky. It was a long time before he spoke again.

"As of this moment," he said, glaring at the five Mandalorians, "you are no longer Mandalorians. You are a disgrace to our people, and an insult to all your brothers and sisters. You have one day to leave Mandalorian space before we send enforcement officers to arrest you."

"_Dar'vode_," Mack said quietly. "_Dar'vode."_

The other Mandalorians slowly began to pick up the chant, lowering their weapons and looking on the five Mandalorians with disgust.

"_Dar'vode. Dar'vode. Dar'vode."_

"_Dar'vode,_" Denton muttered, grabbing Suirotnoc's stun cuffs and hauling him away, "you traitorous sons of bitches.

"Lend a hand," he called to the other Mandos, "get these _aruetiise_ out of here. Escort them to the local spaceport and make sure they leave the planet."

Together, the assembled Mandalorians grouped together to escort the men in the direction of the forest clearing. By the time they left, there were only four Mandalorians left: Denton, Mack, Shysa, and a familiar black-grey Mando who seemed to blend in with the darkness around him.

Brianna saw him standing there and her tired face broke into a wide grin. She stepped toward him and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly. Vhetin hugged her back, murmuring, "I came as soon as I got your message. Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine," she whispered. "I'm so glad you're here."

"Are you kidding? Did you think I would just sit up in that mining outpost and hope you were all right?"

She grinned. "Your confidence in me is overwhelming."

Jay stared at them, feeling a sudden heart-wrenching pang of sadness. There was no one here to worry about her, no one to hold her and comfort her and tell her that it was all going to be all right now.

_That doesn't matter_, she told herself. _I did it. I made it through alive. We _all _made it through alive. I think Sade would be proud of me._

"So…" Denton said, stepping into Jay's field of vision. He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the captured ex-Mandalorians and sighed, "You did it. You managed to catch them."

She shook her head. "No. You and Mia found them. I was just the bait."

"Maybe so, but we wouldn't have even known about these bastards if you hadn't done your part."

"He speaks the truth, lass," Shysa said with a nod of approval. "_Manda'yaim _owes you thanks. The discovery of these men is… disturbing to say the least. I had thought we'd moved past that mode of thinking during the Clone Wars. Apparently I was wrong."

Denton hesitated, then said, "Do you think it's the-"

"No," Shysa interrupted with a stern shake of his head. "There's no reason to be jumpin' to any conclusions, lad."

He turned his gaze to Jay and bowed his head slightly. "Rest assured that the Keldabe Law Enforcement Office will make it their number one priority to find these _dar'vode_'s associates; the ones who put these ridiculous ideas of Mando superiority into their thick skulls."

Jay nodded and said, "Thank you, Mandalore."

"Thank _you_, _vod'ika," _he replied, then turned and strode away. As he went, he called over his shoulder, "Oh, and Mack?"

The silver-armored Mando looked toward his leader and raised an eyebrow. Shysa paused and half-turned back to him, saying, "The medcenter called. Apparently you vanished on them during the last shift change."

"Ooh," Denton said, grinning at the silver Mando. "You're busted now."

"They say that, if you have the time, they'd like you to show up for a rather important surgery for which you're an hour late. Possibly life-threatening stuff; better not disappoint them."

Mack bowed his head. "If you insist, _Mand'alor_."

Shysa winked before disappearing into the trees. Jay stared after him before rubbing her tired, aching eyes. Like so many previous firefights, she suddenly felt as if she could go back to her apartment and sleep for a week. She could barely keep her eyes open as it was.

"So," Denton said, "we're going to need you to help us file a report of this mess for when the rest of the enforcement office gets back to Keldabe. But I think you'll be able to save that till tomorrow."

"Thanks, Denton."

"Just as a precaution," he continued, "I'm going to post a guard outside your apartment for the next couple days and I'll be there to check up on you. We didn't go through all this mess just to have them get at you when we think it's all over."

She nodded. "That would be great. Thank you."

"All in a day's work, Miss Kolta."

"Jay," she corrected. "Call me Jay."

"All right... Jay," he said with a smile. Jay smiled back at him as she slowly stepped past and headed for the clearing. _Vengeance_ waited there, promising a quick flight home and isolation from all the others around her. That was exactly what she needed right now.

She passed Vhetin and Brianna, who were still embracing tightly. She stared at them for a moment, thinking, _They don't know how lucky they are to have each other. I hope someday they realize that._

Then stepped past them and strode into the trees, walking away before anyone could see the tears in her eyes.


	6. Epilogue

Epilogue

**Jay's apartment, one week later**

Jay sat on the edge of the cot in her loft, staring absently at the holopic frame on her bedside table.

Her apartment had been repaired, more or less. She'd bought a new door and set it up when she'd first moved back in, making sure the entryway's security measures were in top conditioning before setting it in. Now she could trigger durasteel locking bars to spring across the back of the door to refuse entry to anyone who tried to ambush her.

Nevertheless, there was still a large scorch mark across the floor in front of her door and further outside in the hall. It was a sobering reminder of what had happened, that even though she was on Mandalore, she was not completely safe.

She sighed and picked up the holopic, pressing the button on the back for what seemed like the hundredth time. The recording of her and Sade sprang to life again, making her smile as she saw his handsome face once more.

She watched the recording in its entirety, then paused it on the last frame, where she and Sade were hugging and smiling at each other.

It almost seemed as if the woman in the recording was a different person than Jay was now. She couldn't even remember a time when she'd been so happy.

She switched the recording off as a wave of grief threatened to spill over into tears. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, calming herself.

_I miss you, Flyboy,_ she thought. _And I don't know if I have what it takes to keep living without you_.

A memory rose to the forefront of her mind, one she remembered as if it were only yesterday. It was those few tense moments before launching for the TIE scrimmage, when Sade had contacted her over their private comm.

"_Look," he had said, "if I know you at all – and I do – then you're not as sure about this plan as you looked when explaining it to everyone else."_

"_You… well, I guess you read my mind."_

"_I have a knack for that. I just wanted to tell you that I have faith in you. You're the best pilot I know, and you're hands-down better than Zarra. Just stay focused and don't lose faith in yourself. Okay?"_

_I have faith in you. Don't lose faith in yourself…_

_He was right_, she thought. _I am strong enough to do this. I am strong enough to keep going. He would have wanted it that way._

She took a deep breath, not entirely sure, and switched off the holorecording. The image transferred back to the still image of Arian, who was smiling sweetly at her.

Jay was still for a long time, staring at the image of her little sister. She looked so innocent in the picture, so young and free and naïve. Jay wished she could go back to days when she'd felt like that. This world of bounty hunters and Mandalorians and assassins was too much for her. She wanted to go somewhere she felt safe and protected and loved…

She wanted to find someplace that felt like _home_. In the past, home had been with her fellow pilots, wherever they would be. She wanted to find that same sense of place, that feeling of belonging that she so craved. And she didn't know if she could find that here on Mandalore, among the highly competitive and violent Mandalorians.

_Wait a minute_, she suddenly thought. _The most important thing to them is family. Vode an, remember?_

She thought over that for a time, frowning and staring at the floor. Maybe there was a place for her here on Mandalore after all. She didn't think she was ready to move on just yet, but maybe someday she'd find the home she wanted here. She could think of worse places.

She heard voices outside her door and she looked up.

"No, I'm a friend," the voice said. "I think I'm allowed to come through. Oh, come on, _vod_, ask Denton. Hell, ask _Jay_."

She hid a smile and stood from her cot. She quickly stepped down the stairs and strode toward the door. As the voice was saying, "Why are you calling your superiors? Just open the damn door!" she pulled the door open and leaned against the doorframe with arms folded across her chest.

"Making a house call?" she asked Vhetin, who was standing outside. He turned his helmeted gaze on her, but — in his usual style — said nothing. She laughed and gestured to the two Mando enforcement officers standing guard outside her door. "It's okay, guys. He's with me. He's my partner."

One of the Mandos glanced between her and Vhetin, then turned to the black-grey Mando and said, "You are? Why didn't you say so?"

"I _did_ say so."

"No, you just said-"

"Why don't you just come in?" Jay asked. He nodded in thanks and stepped into her apartment while she closed the door behind them.

He stood in the center of her apartment, arms folded across his armored chest, and surveyed the room. Jay almost forgot that he'd never been here before.

"This is a nice place you found," he finally said, nodding to himself. "There's not much in the way of cover in case of a firefight, but apart from that..."

She laughed and said, "Any particular reason you decided to drop in on me like this, Cin?"

He nodded and turned to her. "Are you ready to go?"

She hesitated, then nodded and said, "Yeah. Let me just grab my pack and I'll be ready to head out."

As she climbed the stairs to her loft, she heard Vhetin call, "Are you sure you want us along? If you want to go alone, we'll be more than happy to give you some privacy."

"I'm sure," she called back, grabbing her rucksack and her new armorleather jacket from her cot. "It'll be comforting to have you guys there."

"Just making sure," he said. "I know this can be a little difficult."

She sighed as she stepped back down the stairs, pulling on her jacket and slinging her pack over her shoulder. "I'm fine," she said. This time, she actually thought she meant it. "I want to do this."

He nodded and jerked his head toward the door. "Then let's head out. Are you sure those guards will let you past without having to follow you?"

"I think if you tell them that you, Brianna, and Mia are coming along as well they'll be fine."

They stepped out of Jay's apartment, quickly explained what their situation to the guards outside, then proceeded freely outside onto the street. Jay looked around, relieved to see that Keldabe was at last overrun with Mandalorians once again. The sun was shining overhead and most of the Mandos were walking around with their helmets clipped to their belts, relishing the warm weather after the cold air high in the mountains.

It didn't take a genius to know that word traveled fast through Keldabe, so news of Jay's troubles during the past week was common knowledge by now. Several of the Mandos passing her even commented about it.

"I heard you got into a bit of a scrap with those ex-Mando _chakaare _while we were all gone. Not exactly the boring week you were expecting, huh?"

"What do you _aruetii_ girls get up to while we're all out, _Ja'ika_?"

"I'm glad _te_ _Mand'alor _banished those brainless _di'kute_. They didn't deserve to be known as Mandalorians any more."

Jay smiled as she passed the others, glad to be caught up in the ebb and flow of life that was downtown Keldabe. It made her feel warm and protected, safe from the dangers of the galaxy. Here on Mandalore she was safe from the Empire and respected by her fellow bounty hunters. And while she was here, with friends like Brianna, Mia, and Vhetin to help her, she knew could overcome anything.

They stopped by the _Oyu'baat_ before they left, waiting to meet up with Brianna and Mia, and Jay casually struck up conversation with Aramis while she ordered a drink.

"Did you ever find that Mando that infiltrated your kitchen, Aramis?" she asked him as he handed her a cool glass of Tichagari juice. The bartender's stock was dangerously close to going sour, so the juice was all he would serve to tapcaf-goers that day.

At her question, his lined face turned down in a scowl and he replied, "Not yet. But I'll find him. You don't just sneak on into the _Oyu'baat_ and start slippin' stuff into my drinks."

"You sound as if this is pretty serious."

"It is," he replied, tossing a cleaning rag over his shoulder. "You'd be better off tryin' to sneak into the Emperor's personal quarters on Coruscant. Those Imp Red Guards would let you off _easy_ in comparison to what I do to people who mess with patron's orders."

"So you're the bar owner, tender, and bouncer all in one," Jay said. "Pretty impressive."

"Some Mandos are able to master a wide variety of weapons and fighting techniques. This is my talent."

She laughed and thanked him for her drink before turning back to the bar. She saw Venku sitting with a large cluster of Skiratas and she nodded to him with a smile. He smiled back and tipped his glass to her in toast.

"Heading out early?" a voice said. Jay turned to find Denton reclining in his chair at a nearby table. His hands were tucked behind his head and there was an untouched mug of _ne'tra gal_ on the table in front of him. He nodded toward the other chair and said, "You want to sit?"

"Sure," she said, sliding into the chair. He removed his feet from the tabletop and pushed his helmet to one side to clear up most of the table. She set down her drink and rested her forearms on the tabletop.

"What's up?" she asked.

"Just following up on the reports," Denton said. "They say I have to interview you and see how everything is going. Have you had a calm week?"

"Calm and quiet all week. How about you?"

"Pretty boring," he said, shrugging. "Busy — the entire enforcement office as lots of paperwork to catch up on — but boring."

"No homicidal Mandalorians running amok?"

He laughed and shook his head. "Nope. Just the normal drunks and punk troublemakers to take care of."

"Good," she said with a smile. She hesitated, then said, "Denton, I'd like to thank you for all you did to help me this last week. I'm glad you were there."

He shook his head, disregarding the thanks. "Don't mention it. It's all in a day's work for enforcement officers. I mean, it is what we get paid for, remember?"

"Well, when you put it like that..."

"I was glad to help," he said, his eyes shining in amusement. "And I'm glad you made it out okay. You're a pretty skilled fighter; I think I'll have to pay closer attention to your career in the future."

The door to the _Oyu'baat_ opened and Jay looked over to see Brianna and Mia step inside. They looked around before spotting Jay and making their way through the crowd towards her.

"Hey there," Brianna greeted her. "Are you ready to go?"

Jay nodded and quickly finished the rest of her drink. She thanked Denton before following her friends out the door.

"I think this is a very good idea, Jay," Mia said as the small group set off for the spaceport. "I think it'll make you feel a lot better."

"I hope so," Jay said. "But whether it does or not, it has to be done."

Within the next half-hour, they were all in their separate ships heading for orbit; Vhetin piloting _Void_, Jay in _Vengeance,_ and Brianna and Mia at the controls of the _Blood Lily_.

Her private comm sputtered as they headed for open space and Vhetin's quiet voice said, "Jay, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure," she replied. "What do you need?"

"I just wanted to say... um, I wanted to say that I'm sorry for your loss. I didn't know-"

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," she interrupted him. "I've been angry with you for not telling me about your past when I've been doing the same thing."

He chuckled quietly. "You really think I'd hold that against you? That would make me the worst kind of hypocrite."

"So-"

"Before you ask, no. Just because you came clean with your past doesn't mean I'm going to."

She smiled and said, "It's good to have you back, Vhetin."

"Don't try to butter me up. That won't work either."

"I just thought I'd ask," she said. "I figure one time I'm going to catch you with your guard down and you'll accidentally tell me."

"Keep thinking that," he said. "But seriously, I am truly sorry for what you were put through. I can see now that I made light of your deployment at Malachor and your imprisonment. And I'm sorry for that."

She shook her head, not caring that he couldn't see it. "It's okay. Besides, you rescued me from prison in the first place. That makes us even."

"I don't see it that way," he said, "but if that's what you've decided..."

"It is," she said. "And I don't mean to be rude about this, but I'd prefer it if you didn't talk about it. I'm trying to leave that part of my life behind me as best I can."

"Will do," he said and signed off the comm.

Jay stared at _Void_ as it swooped ahead of her fighter. She was glad that Vhetin was back; it was good to have her best friend and hunting partner to turn to again. Of course, his arsenal of weapons and advanced hand-to-hand combat skills were comforting as well.

"This is freelance transport _Vengeance_ and companions," she transmitted to the Imperial relay station on Concordia, "requesting hyperspace clearance for transit to Coruscant."

There was a pause, then an Imperial commed back. "Hyperspace clearance granted, _Vengeance_. Keep out of trouble."

"Roger." Jay signed off and guided her ship toward the hyperspace sector. After a moment, the navicomputer aligned her ship with the transit lane. When the navicomp chimed that _Vengeance_ was ready, she pushed the activation lever forward and the stars blurred to streaks before exploding into the whirling white tunnel of hyperspace.

* * *

**Imperial City (formerly Coruscant)**

"You ready, Jay?"

She adjusted her cap nervously, smoothing out what was left of her Imperial uniform. She had insisted that she dress in her old regulation uniform; it would make her look more inconspicuous while on Imperial-controlled Coruscant and it was simply a sign of respect.

"I'm ready," she finally said.

"You're sure?"

She nodded and let out a long breath she didn't know she had been holding. "As sure as I'll ever be. Open the doors."

Vhetin nodded and pushed open the double-doors, standing aside to let her pass. She thanked him as she stepped into the huge room that lay beyond. Her heart was pounding as she stepped down a hall flanked by hundreds small, polished boxes of text. She was dimly aware of the others staying behind, waiting by the door in order to give her some privacy.

Each text box mounted on the walls contained the name, rank, and identification number of all recorded Navy personnel who had been killed since the rise of the Empire. The building had been repurposed at the end of the Clone Wars to serve as the Coruscant Military Cemetery. Jay had never been here, and it hurt that she had to travel here now.

It didn't take her long to find a niche in the aisle for the crew of the _A.S.D Triumphant_, which had been lost with all hands.

All except Jay. She stared at the large collection of names, searching for five in particular. It took some time, since the _Triumphant _had had a crew of thousands. A cold shiver ran through her when she finally saw the name _Kalin "Dewback" Uiran_, _Lieutenant, DX-9837Z._

She had found Phantom Squadron. She slowly knelt, brushing her shaking fingertips over the engraved nameplate of her fellow pilot. Her eyes were wide and her breath had caught in her throat. With difficulty she swallowed and whispered, "Hey there, Dewback. I've missed you, buddy."

Her words were met only with silence, but she could suddenly imagine Kalin standing right there, grinning that crooked grin of his and running a hand through his eternally messy hair.

Mounted in small text boxes around the pilot were the names of all the rest of Phantom Squadron: Red Dwarf, O, Yessir, and…

She closed her eyes as she found the box that read, _Sade "Flyboy" Nesson, Captain, 1__st__ class, OC-9871Q._

_Flyboy_. That was her nickname for him, the name she'd given to him almost two months after she'd met him. It made her want to smile and weep at the same time.

"Hey, baby," she whispered, touching the cool surface of the engraved text box. "I'm sorry it took me so long to get here. I've missed you."

No answer. She closed her eyes and fought back a wave of tears.

"I bet you'd be pretty confused about what's happened to me since Malachor," she said. She smiled a little and said, "And I don't know if I have enough time to tell you the whole story. You'll have to settle for the edited HoloNet version, okay?"

She could imagine him laughing, his green eyes sparkling with amusement. She smiled as well and began to retell everything that had happened since that terrible day above the remains of Malachor V. It didn't matter to her that Sade was dead, that his body wasn't even interred in this military cemetery. She didn't know if it was just her imagination or a by-product of her overtaxed mind, but she felt as if he was right there with her. She at last felt that she that she was safe and that she wasn't alone any more.

She stayed there for the better part of an hour, mostly just sitting cross-legged on the floor and staring at the text box in front of her. She lost herself in memories of those happy days with Phantom Squadron, cherishing every moment she could recall, even if it had been a moment of great embarrassment or frustration at the time.

She shook her head, staring at the five names of Phantom Squad and whispering, "I miss you guys so much. But I think I'm going to be all right. I've made some great friends and… I think I'll be able to make a good life for myself now."

She heard someone clear his throat behind her and she turned to see Vhetin standing a foot or so away. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable for interrupting her.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Um… the next security patrol passes through here in five minutes," he said quietly. "And I don't think you want to round off this day by getting arrested again. We'd better go."

She reluctantly nodded, slowly clambered to her feet, and smoothed out her uniform again. She took one last look at the names engraved into the boxes in front of her, then stood at attention and saluted slowly.

"Rest in peace, guys," she said, holding the salute. "I miss you more than you can ever know."

As she turned to leave, she noticed Vhetin staring intently at the engraved names of Phantom Squadron. She cocked her head and said, "What's wrong?"

He jumped slightly as if in surprise and said, "Huh? Oh, nothing."

"What?" she said, narrowing her eyes. "Something's bothering you."

"I just…" he sighed and said, "You probably don't want to hear this, but can I show you something? It may help you feel better."

She hesitated, unsure of what he was talking about, then said, "Okay. What is it?"

"A Mandalorian remembrance ritual," he explained. "It's pretty simple. Just touch the text boxes-"

She slowly complied.

"-and repeat after me: _Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum_. Then say their names."

She turned her gaze toward the text boxes and whispered, "_Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum_, Sade, Fillton, Oppan, Turina, and Kalin."

She looked to her partner and said, "Is that it?"

He nodded. "You'll have to repeat that every day, but in return they'll live forever in memory."

"What does it mean?"

"Basically what I just said: _I'm alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal_."

She thought over that, then nodded as she straightened and brushed her hands off. "I like it."

"I thought it would help," he said as they both turned and headed back for the exit doors.

Brianna and Mia were waiting for them there, looking to Jay with sympathetic gazes.

"Are you all right?" Brianna asked as they began their journey back toward the ships.

Jay nodded, her eyes dry of any more tears. Some of the weight seemed to have been lifted from her shoulders and she felt much calmer now, in the presence of her new friends.

"I'm fine," she said truthfully. "Let's head home."

_To be continued in Star Wars: White Snow: Reputation…_


End file.
